


To Know What It's Like To Be You

by reading_is_in



Series: Vampire AU [2]
Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, Mindless Self Indulgence (Band), My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, The Academy Is...
Genre: Alternate Universe - A Little Less Sixteen Candles (Music Video), Decaydance - Freeform, Multi, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:55:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 39,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21802510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reading_is_in/pseuds/reading_is_in
Summary: Nearly two years have passed since the events of 'A Little More 16 Candles...'. Order is largely restored to Chicago, the guys get their band signed, and human-vampire relations are restored for the moment. But all is not as it seems at the Way Mansion, home to a reclusive clan of vampires who have little to do with either the human citizens or their own kind. Meanwhile, the exiled Dandies are still out there someplace, and more mysterious creatures than vampires threaten the peace of the city.
Relationships: Gerard Way/Lindsey Way, Pete Wentz/Patrick Stump
Series: Vampire AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1571098
Comments: 40
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

  
  
  
  


Glancing back over his shoulder, Mikey quietly closed the door to his attic bedroom and opened the closet door. On the shelf sat a small laptop, which he picked up and turned on before settling down on his mattress. It wasn’t like Gerard would _ban_ him from this or anything - technically he _could_ , as the head of the clan, but he wouldn’t. He didn’t really ban Mikey from anything. But he didn’t like it. VCRs were one thing. But whilst Gerard didn’t understand how the internet worked and made no real attempt to learn, he knew it was connected to the outside world and regarded the new-fangled invention with suspicion and dislike. If he saw, he’d just give Mikey disappointed looks, and they’d end up having the _conversation_ again:

“What are you reading now? Haven’t you finished it yet? What could possibly be so interesting about it?”

“Whatever I want, Gee! It’s like - everything! Everything is on here!”

“In there?” Gerard looked doubtfully at the small machine.

“Not _in_ the laptop,” Mikey explained for the fiftieth time. “The laptop picks up a wireless signal and lets me connect to the internet.”

“What are you reading off the internet?”

“The news.”

“Why do you need to read the news, Mikey?”

“To know what’s happening in the world!”

Here Gerard would sigh and give him long-suffering eyes. Mikey and Gerard had very different ideas about _the world._ Their parents had been like Gerard - inward looking, concerned only with the family and the clan and keeping themselves safe:

“You know we’re not like the others, Mikey,” Gerard would say. “It's just safer this way. We keep to ourselves and nobody bothers us. It's how we’ve always been.”

But Mikey was different. Apparently their great-grandmother had been like him - bold, in a quiet way, interested in both the human world and in other vampires. When their own grandmother took over as clan head, she’d firmly reinstated the isolationist policies and trained Gerard up as her successor. Being born-fanged, the latest in a long line, Mikey had little experience outside the Way family mansion and the handful of like-minded vampires who had joined their clan. Gerard liked it that way. Other vampires, he said, were dangerous, using violence to meet their ends and drinking the blood of living creatures to sustain themselves. And as for humans - well, they were ten times worse.

Mikey finished scanning the headlines then clicked on the local reports for the greater Chicago area. There wasn’t much to read - ever since Gabriel Saporta had been reinstated as head of the Dandies, things had been pretty quiet. He clicked through the usual stuff about politicians accused of corruption, a litter-picking drive, a community cookout, a burglary at some department store...he moved on to ‘Arts and Culture’, clicked ‘alternative and underground’, then paused:

_Songs with bite? Vampire-fronted band signed to local label._

_Was ‘The Fall Out Boys’ First Show at the Metro a Killer Evening or Simply a Suckfest? Ben Walsh reports._

Mikey scrolled down the page to a large photograph. A pretty-faced guy with tan skin and a rather obvious set of fangs was shown onstage, screaming into a microphone, a black and red bass slung at his waist. Next to him, standing back a little, a young-looking guy in a cap and thick glasses stared determinedly down at his own guitar. There was another guy to their left, but he’d been partly cut off by the frame, and part of a drumset was visible behind them. Mikey stared. The Metro was a human club. Were all those other people humans? What was a vampire doing playing with them? He went on to skim the article. It was partly a show review, which the writer described as ‘messy but energetic’, with the crowd apparently ‘willing enough to overlook the occasional bum note’. The rest of the piece was devoted to comment and speculation on the strange fact of a vampire who was indeed, as it turned out, fronting a band full of humans.

_When the Fall Out Boys aren’t laying down riffs or playing local club shows, you’ll find them hard at work at what guitarist Jake Troham, 19, describes as their ‘other job’: hunting down rogue vampires and other things that go bump in the night. Doesn’t that get a bit awkward, I ask, with a quick glance at their vampiric frontman, a slight, eyeliner-wearing scene kid by the name of Peter Wentz, whose diminutive stature belies his admitted charisma and stage presence. On the contrary, Troham tells me:_

_“Having Pete helps a lot. Not all vampires are the same, you know, they’re as individual as humans.”_

Mikey blinked. He had very little experience with humans, but he’d always been taught they were hopelessly prejudiced against vampires. He didn’t know what to make of the article, but found himself very curious. He knew outside vampires fought each other - all the time, Gerard said - but ‘hunting’ was a human activity. Mikey had never seen a hunter, but Grandmother used to tell them stories, about sadistic human gangs that would hunt down innocent vampires and kill them just for existing, or worse, capture them, keep them locked up for experiments. He had never been entirely sure if hunters were real, or more of a bogeyman used to scare vampire children into behaving, but apparently they were and they were right here in Chicago. How could a vampire be a hunter? How could vampires and hunters be friends? Was this Peter some kind of psychopath, who had turned on his own kind to hunt them down alongside their natural enemies?

He didn’t look like a psychopath. 

Mikey thought he looked rather nice. They all did - a bit geeky, a bit awkward, and kind of earnest, the sort of people Mikey might have been friends with, if he could have friends outside the clan.

“Hey Mikey?” That was Gerard’s voice, from somewhere near the stairs. “Come down, it's time to work on your genealogy.”

“Coming Gee!” Mikey closed the laptop and stashed it back on the shelf, locking the cupboard behind him.

*

  
  


“JAKE TROHAM? GUITARIST JAKE TROHAM? WHO THE FUCKING FUCK IS GUITARIST JAKE TROHAM?” Joe was practically screaming.

“He called me a scene kid,” said Pete in apparently total shock.

“He called us Fall Out Boys,” said Patrick.

“That is truly incredible,” said Andy from his seat at the computer, where he’d just pulled up their first-ever actual review for an actual show at the Metro. They all looked at him. “I mean, how you can change a good band name to an utterly shitty one just by adding one letter.”

“We can’t allow this,” said Patrick.

“I’ll say,” said Pete. “I am not _scene._ I am an individual. Kids didn’t even have this hair before I started it.”

“Not _that_. The Fall Out Boys thing! We sound like a bad teen boyband from 1987!”

“We’ll be really specific next time,” said Andy. “We’ll write it down.”

“Fucking Jake Troham,” Joe flung himself on the couch and covered his eyes with one arm. “Okay Troham is borderline understandable, but how the fuck do you mess up _Joe_? Like it's literally the stereotype of a regular name. What even is this article?”

In the first six months they’d established themselves as the 16 Candles Agency, they’d had little time for band stuff. They’d played together, and done a bit of writing, but getting themselves in appropriate shape to survive as working hunters had necessarily been their first priority. But now nearly two years had passed. As far as Joe’s parents knew, he’d moved into an apartment downtown with some friends. Which was mostly true. Pete and Patrick were his friends, and the random stoner they found on freeads to make up a fourth of the rent and bills was alright. Kept to himself and kept up his contributions, though where the money came from was a mystery. In reality, they barely spent any time there. Between his day job at Burger King - the one that actually paid money - Fall Out Boy stuff, and 16 Candles, Joe estimated he slept at the apartment maybe two nights a week. His parents weren’t exactly thrilled with him ‘delaying’ college to try and make it as a musician, but he thought they’d been slightly impressed when they actually got a record deal. The former warehouse was a properly-equipped base of operations, they’d greatly improved their armaments, and were even getting something of a reputation in the Chicago area. Their relationship with the Dandies was cordial - they weren’t exactly collaborators, but they shared information, and once or twice Gabriel lent them fighting support. For the past year, they’d felt safe to devote a lot more time to band practice, and as of last month, were officially signed to a tiny independent punk label. All in all, it was safe to say things had been looking up, asshole journalism-school fail-outs notwithstanding. 

  
  


“At least it's publicity,” Pete sighed. 

“Hey guys come look at this,” Andy was frowning. He’d clicked off the review and was scanning his emails. They all crowded around the terminal. “Do the Dandies have email now or what?”

“I guess they're getting with the times,” said Patrick, peering at the sender named displayed on Andy’s account. Andy shrugged and clicked on the message. It was just an attachment, with ‘FYI’ typed at the top.

_Chicago’s Own Nessie? Third swimmer disappears near Montrose Beach. Local claims to see ‘large creature’ in the water._

“So?” Joe said.

“Nice,” said Patrick.

“Not like that, I just mean what does this have to do with us? We’re hunters, not lifeguards.”

“Unless there are water vampires,” Pete said with a wicked grin.

“Oh God, don’t even joke,” said Patrick.

“Don’t you like water, Pattycakes?” Pete asked, and started tickling him, so Patrick turned bright red and started slapping him and kicked him in the shin. They’d been ‘together’, Joe guessed, almost as long as Pete had been turned, though neither of them had ever come out and said it. It was the longest continuous relationship he’d ever known Pete to have - by about eighteen months, come to think of it. The weird thing was that Pete was still forcibly physically affectionate (he’d always been fond of PDA: with his girlfriends, with his friends, with people he’d just been introduced to…) and Patrick was naturally physically reserved, at least in public. As a result, most of their interactions looked like a mild form of harassment, and tended to end with Patrick slapping or kicking Pete, but neither of them complained about it.

“It says here that a witness saw something drag the guy under,” Andy was reading and ignoring them.

“What, like a shark?” said Joe.

“There aren’t any sharks in the Great Lakes, Joe. They live in saltwater.”

“Well excuse me Professor, we can’t all be a walking encyclopedia,” Joe bitched.

“The witness could be bullshitting,” Patrick suggested. “Fifteen minutes of fame and all that. Or they could have imagined it, people do that all the time.”

“I’m gonna call Saporta,” said Andy. “It's weird but I’m still not sure what it has to do with us.”

The Head of the Midwest Dandies rarely answered his cell, so they called the landline at the mansion and one of the fledglings obligingly put them through. Andy put Gabriel on speakerphone.

“Hi,” he said, then immediately: “Why did you send us this article about the Lake?”

“Well, I thought you might want to look into it,” said Gabriel in his measured way. “Aren’t human-killers your main concern? I understand that the merfolk can be vicious adversaries, but typically they go out of their way to avoid humans. This is quite aberrant.”

Patrick, Pete, Joe and Andy all went quiet. Naturally, Pete broke it first.

“THE WHAAAT-FOLK?” he screamed into the phone.

It was Gabriel’s turn to pause. Then his voice crackled through the weak speaker again:

“Am I to take it you are unaware of the existence of the merfolk?”

“You could say that,” Patrick admitted.

“You have a vampire living among you. You pride yourself on your research and documentation, do you not?”

“Give us a break!” objected Joe. “We have band stuff too you know! _And_ day jobs!”

“Well, I suppose it makes sense,” Patrick shrugged. “When people first learned about vampires they freaked out about them too. Why shouldn’t other creatures exist?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Andy. “We didn’t sign up to fight mermaids. We don’t know anything about them. We don’t have the right weapons or-”

“Why don’t you come up to the house?” said Gabriel. “I think you’ll find yourselves more prepared than you currently imagine.”

They all looked at each other.

“The vamps have been pretty quiet lately,” said Joe.

“One question, Saporta,” said Andy. He still called Gabriel that, but Joe had a hard time thinking of a - not a friend, but almost-friendly acquaintance - Joe had a hard time thinking of an almost-friendly acquaintance by their surname. 

“They haven’t provoked me,” Gabriel pointed out. “My concern is the welfare of my people. I understood that your concern was the welfare of local humans. Or has that changed?”

“No, that’s true,” said Patrick. “We’ll come up to the mansion.”

  
  
  


*

“So mermaids are - like - related to vampires?” Patrick frowned, shifting his weight in the uncomfortable antique chair. The Dandies were very into the curling baroque style of furnishings, which were sort of cool to look at but not necessarily the most practical.

“Merfolk,” Gabriel corrected. “I wouldn’t refer to them as mermaids, if you want to survive meeting any.” He, of course, looked perfectly comfortable, managing to half-sprawl with a kind of elegance which might have been vampire-charisma, or might have just been personal. As usual when meeting with humans, a couple of his close associates were hanging around the drawing room, not doing anything, just establishing a presence. They’d redecorated since Beckett was banished - the formerly deep-red furnishings replaced by more muted earth tones, the walls repainted with neutrals. It was lighter: less horror-movie, more English country house. Patrick almost felt comfortable around Gabriel these days (until he remembered the time he had witnessed him rip out a rogue vampire’s throat and swallow a chunk of the artery, or use his psychic powers to freeze one where he stood and then force him to stake himself using just a glance. Truce or no truce, no-one became the Head of the Midwest Dandies by pacifism).

“I thought we were going to be hunting them anyway,” said Joe. 

“These ones, perhaps,” said Gabriel. “You may meet more.”

“Are there many?” Andy asked. “Are they organized? Where do they live? What sort of social structures do they have?”

“Their numbers are hard to estimate” Gabriel sipped from the goblet of blood he was holding. “We don’t have a great deal of contact anymore, though legends say they descended from us, diverged and returned to the ocean. Or vice-versa, depending on who you ask. Maja?” He didn’t look at her, but the younger vampire knew what he was asking. She moved easily to the bookshelf and selected a heavy volume, setting it down on the coffee table and opening it to a page without checking the contents. They were always doing weird shit like that - little vampire things that just reminded you of their weird powers. The book was printed in an old-fashioned style, the pages yellowed with age, and illustrated with what looked like faded watercolors. The open page was headed ‘Merfolk (Sirens, Nereid)', with a picture that looked like no mermaid Patrick had ever imagined. It had the tail of a fish, and a human-shaped torso, but that was where the similarities to a Disney rendering ended. Its skin was a sickly grey, its scales black, and while its face was vaguely humanoid, its eyes were entirely black and painted to look slick and wet. It had nostrils but not much of a nose, and it's mouth was shown open, filled with vampiric-looking fangs. 

“There are at least two shoals in the Great Lakes, but it's strange they’re so far inland,” Gabriel pushed the book towards them, offering them to take it. 

“It says here they avoid humans,” said Andy.

“They do. I don’t know why this one is killing.”

“What makes you think it's only one?”

“I assume it's an outcast, or perhaps a pair of them. I can’t imagine any shoal tolerating this. They depend on their secrecy, you know.”

“Oh,” said Pete. “That’s a bit sad, actually. I mean, if it's an outcast. Maybe it's just really hungry.”

“They don’t eat human. But they can be fairly sadistic.”

“Oh. Well. Fuck it then.”

Gabriel smirked. “Quite.”

“Wait, do we hate merfolk?” Pete asked him. “Are we in a supernatural species feud? I’ve seen _Twilight_.”

“Several times,” muttered Patrick, and Pete poked him. Then he got a strange look on his face:

“Hold up. Do werewolves exist? Do other things? What the hell else exists? Why don’t I know this?”

Gabriel gave him a long look Patrick couldn’t read.

“You are very isolated, Peter. It's your choice, of course, but it just isn’t natural for a vampire to live with the humans.”

Pete bristled. Patrick wanted to be angry, and he was angry, but he also felt scared.

“Yeah yeah we’ve had this conversation,” Pete snapped.

“My offer is always open,” Gabriel extended his hands. Patrick knew he’d invited Pete to come live with the Dandies. Pete had turned him down emphatically. He must have thought about it at times though. Wondered what he was missing. “But in answer to your question, most human legends have some basis in fact. Some are highly distorted - as I’m sure you’ve noticed - but it's difficult for any species to share a planet for millennia with no contact at all.”

“So can we borrow this?” Patrick asked, pointing to the book. He wanted to just grab it and see what else was in there but it might be a priceless antique or something.

“Oh, keep it,” Gabriel said. “Your library obviously needs improvement.”

“Um, thanks, I think,” said Pete.

“Think nothing of it. Material possessions start to look different after a few hundred years. You’ll see.”

“Yeah. I guess I will,” said Pete quietly.


	2. Chapter 2

“That was when your great-great-great-great aunt Cecilia married into the Jersey branch, but it doesn’t say when their son was born. Put a note in the margin, there should be a copy of the certificate. It says she was a witch, but it doesn’t give any details of - Mikey? Mikey are you writing this down?”

“I’m writing it!” Mikey drew his eyes from the great barred windows, and tried hard to look like he’d been busy scribbling the whole time. Ray frowned at him like he knew exactly what he was doing:

“Mikey this is important. Now your brother is clan head he doesn’t have time to do all the family trees as well.”

“Why don’t you do them?” Mikey asked. “You are the archivist, shouldn’t it be your job?”

“You know a Way is always responsible for keeping up the genealogies, Mikey. Aren’t you interested? They’re your relatives.”

“I’ve never even heard of half these people before,” Mikey complained. “My family is too big.”

“It is kind of big,” Ray admitted with a small grin and went back to the huge stack of certificates. That was the thing about Ray - he was really bad for complaining at, because he was so damned amiable that he made it difficult to be cranky. They were in the library: a large marble chamber that had something of the mausoleum about it, a vaulted ceiling and windows barred with dark iron. That was to keep other vampires out, primarily, but it always gave Mikey a nasty sense of being inside a cage. Instead of tombs, though, there were rows upon rows of shelves of papers and books dating back to at least the 1600s. Probably earlier, Mikey wasn’t sure - the first Ways had appeared in Scotland sometime in the Middle Ages, he knew, but there weren’t many records from that time. Gerard had been looking for them when their grandmother had passed, making him head of the clan and pulling him away from the quieter, nerdy pursuits he occupied his time with voluntarily. He and Ray were alike like that. Ray, who’d been turned in the First World War, had been with the Way family pretty much ever since, and Mikey often reflected he seemed more like a born Way temperamentally than Mikey himself did.

“This would all go a lot faster if we computerized the records,” Mikey said.

“Well, you could start,” Ray encouraged him.

“I need a scanner,” said Mikey.

“Shall I put in a request to James? He’s made up the accounts-”

“Nah, I’ll just tell Gerard I’m buying one.”

“With the - the card?”

“Yeah, the card.” Credit cards were one modern invention Gerard had been forced to adopt. There were just too many things you couldn’t use cash for these days. It was still deeply annoying, being a hundred and forty-five and not having one’s own money, but it was all Mikey had ever known. Besides, the only way to acquire it would be to get a job, and he really had no idea how he could do that. 

“Okay,” Ray made some notes and then stood up, presumably to go back to his own work.

“Hey Ray,” said Mikey suddenly.

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever heard of a vampire living with humans?”

Ray paused. Then he sat down again. “Uh, I can’t say that I have. Humans aren’t exactly fond of us, you know. Be a bit like a wolf living with a pack of hunters, wouldn’t it?I could look into it if you like.” 

“Nah, that’s okay.”

“What’s okay?” Gerard had appeared in the doorway, looking very un-authoritative with his hair sticking up in all directions - a result of his habit of running his fingers through it when he was thinking. 

“Nothing,” said Mikey. 

“Mikey wants to know if vampires have ever lived with humans,” Ray said. 

“What? Why?” Gerard came into the library properly. He had a stylus in one hand and his fingers were stained with ink.

“No reason,” said Mikey. “Just wondering.”

“You were not just wondering Mikey,” Gerard said. “Why do you want to know?”

“Okay fine,” Mikey sighed. “There’s this band, and they’re humans, but they’ve got a vampire frontman and their name’s kind of dumb but they seem cool, and they play shows at the Metro and I want to go to one.”

It was Gerard’s turn to sigh. “Mikey…”

“You can’t stop me.”

“Yes I can.”

“Well, you won’t.”

Gerard paused, then he sat down, and took one of Mikey’s hands, getting some ink on his fingers and giving him the big sympathetic eyes. “Look Mikes. I know you miss being in bands, and I’m sorry, but it's just too dangerous at the moment for you to be out there. Did you know stakings have increased 400% in the past two years?”

“That was because of the Dandy thing! You know, with William Beckett! It's all over now, you always say it's too dangerous!”

“That’s because it always is!” Gerard raised his voice, then immediately calmed himself. “I know it's difficult for you Mikey. I know you miss music - I do too - I just haven't had much time to play lately, but how about if we open up one of the practice rooms, get one of the pianos tuned-”

“I want to go _out,”_ said Mikey.

“Fine! We can go out! Just let me talk to Bob and arrange some protection-”

“No, I want to go to a show, Gerard. We used to go to shows.”

“In the twenties, Mikey, yes! Before humans knew about us! Before they hunted us!”

“They don’t all hunt us! Things are different now!”

_“Are_ they?”

“Wait here.” 

Mikey dashed upstairs, grabbed his laptop, and found the piece about the band again. He brought it back down and practically slammed it on the table, moving the cursor emphatically under the headline.

“Look at this,” he said.

Gerard frowned and peered in that way he did when you showed him anything invented after 1880. 

“How could a vampire work with humans if all humans just wanted to hunt us down?” Mikey demanded. “How could they be friends?”

“Well, I don’t know. This guy is obviously very strange.”

“Are we sure he’s a vampire?” Ray asked. “It could be a publicity stunt, you know, first band with a vampire frontman, attract the vamp groupies.”

“Looks pretty real to me,” Gerard studied the picture. “I suppose it's possible, but I think it would be very hard to fake vampirism at close quarters. Maybe he’s some kind of anti-vampire vampire. I heard of one of those once, but they say she lived in a cave in the wilderness and ate rabbits.”

“Ew, said Mikey.

“In any case it's quite interesting,” said Gerard. “But we’re not about to start trusting humans over it. You know I never do this, Mikey, but I’m sorry, I have to put my foot down. If this guy really is a vampire, he could be dangerous. If he isn’t a vampire - he’s probably even more dangerous. You can’t go.”

Mikey stared at him, trying to judge his resolve, but Gerard just stared back. He tried to push at his mind a little bit, just probing, but Gerard had very good defences even against Mikey when he needed them.

“Well, this is all extremely awkward,” Ray said. “But I do have other things to do before morning. We’ll pick this up again tomorrow night, Mikey. See you guys at dinner.”

“See you,” said Mikey despondently. It wasn’t Ray’s fault after all. He picked up his laptop again and headed back to his room.

  
  


*

  
  


“So the psychic thing,” said Patrick that night. They were back at the apartment. Their weird roommate was out for once. Joe had stayed at the warehouse to try and adapt some weapons based on what they’d learned about the merfolk, because he ‘didn’t need his eardrums scarred for life by you two doing it next door’, as he expressed it. He needn’t have worried, thought Patrick a little glumly. Joe seemed to assume they had started having sex pretty much immediately when they got together, but the truth was, they hadn’t done it yet. They’d done _some_ stuff, but the first time started to look and feel like they might be going the whole way, Pete had stopped things:

“This better not be more of your _Twilight_ bullshit,” Patrick had said. “Because one, I’m not scared of you, and two, I’m not a virgin.”

Pete had blinked at him: “You’re not?”

 _“No_ , you narcissistic dickwad! I’ve had two girlfriends!” (To be super technical, he’d only had really sex with one of them. Like full sex anyway. But Pete didn’t need to know all the details and Patrick’s point stood).

Pete paused. “Have you ever been with a guy?”

“No but. Have you?”

“Yeah.”

“ _Have_ you?”

“Yeah! Well I’ve like - kissed a guy, and made out with him. There was this punk chick who said it would be totally hot and-”

“I get the picture.”

“In any case that’s not the point,” Pete had shaken his head, the new bangs he had recently grown out bouncing emphatically. “The point is, I’ve rushed right into sex in, well, all my relationships, and all of them have pretty much crashed and burned. I don’t want that to happen to us, Rick. I want to do this right.”

“What are we waiting for?” Patrick asked him. Maybe he was coming off a little bit desperate, but then, he was a healthy 18 year old male with the prospect of sex with an attractive partner being dangled in front of him. He _was_ a little bit desperate. 

“For the time to be right,” Pete had said mysteriously, pressed his finger to Patrick’s lips. “It will be worth it.”

Then he’d used his vampire advantage to pin Patrick to the bed and jerk him off until Patrick stopped complaining. 

Tonight, they’d already had a most satisfactory makeout session that ended in mutual orgasms, and Patrick had accepted that was as far as things would be going at the moment. Now they were curled up on the couch watching _The Empire Strikes Back,_ which both of them could practically recite in any case, and talking over it intermittently.

“The psychic thing,” said Patrick again when Pete didn’t respond. “Do you like - feel it?” 

“Not really,” said Pete. He was looking at the television, but the little flicker in his dark eyes betrayed that the question had disconcerted him.

“What does it feel like?” asked Patrick. If Pete really didn’t want to talk about it, he’d tell Patrick to shut up, or possibly start making out with him again.

“It’s like…” Pete shifted, unwrapping one arm from around his knees to gesture to his head. 

“There’s something in here. I can feel it. It's like - present, but not - active. It's not active. Like a radio that’s on but not receiving anything. Every once in a while there’s a flicker or something. But it's just noise. Just static. That’s the best I can explain it, I guess.”

“Could you tune it?”

Pete looked at him sharply from one side:

“Why?”

“Well I just figured it could be useful,” Patrick picked at a thread on the couch. “Be a hell of an advantage if you could figure out our enemies position and whatnot.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Pete looked back at the screen. The familiar dance of a lightsaber dual cast reflections across his face. It still struck Patrick as odd, sometimes, how a guy could be so pretty - he’d believed he was straight before he met Pete, after all, not that he’d given it a huge deal of thought. He’d just kind of - gone with the assumption. Why wouldn’t he? It had prompted a minor identity crisis at the beginning, when it occurred to him to wonder if it was just Pete, or if he was going to start being attracted to random guys now, and if so, did that make him gay? He hadn’t really noticed any other guys, but then he hadn’t really noticed any _girls_ either, since he’d been with Pete.

Holy shit, he had it so bad for him.

“Like what?”

“Like I don’t think I can just direct it at random vampires. I don't have that much control over it. It's only - …” he stopped himself. 

But it was too late. Pete was never very good at keeping secrets and Patrick was getting increasingly good at reading him.

“Particular vampires,” his heart sank. “Like Him.”

_Him._ They rarely said Beckett’s name anymore. There was really no need to. 

“I’m not doing it on purpose,” Pete said quickly. “It just happens. It's not like he sends me secret messages. I’m just - I don’t know. I’m aware of him. It's like - like a pressure. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m having like - flashbacks - memories - or if he’s _doing something,_ like reaching out for me. Fuck. I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?” said Patrick quietly. He thought about touching Pete, taking his hand or sliding an arm around him, but Pete was prickling with defensiveness, practically electric. “I know you’re not doing it on purpose. I’m not - like - blaming you or anything. I just wanted to know if there was anything I could - we could do to help.”

“When I kill him it won’t be a problem anymore,” said Pete.

Patrick sighed. Pete hadn’t brought that up for a while. Patrick wasn’t under the illusion he’d let it go or anything, but thought maybe he was getting less obsessive about it.

“You don’t think I can do it,” Pete said. “Maybe I can’t, right now. But one day I will. I’ve got time, now, haven’t I?”

That was another thing they hadn’t talked about. The rather profound difference in their new projected lifespans. Surely, Patrick thought, they couldn’t be the first human and vampire to ever fall in - to ever be together. Did they just not think about that sort of thing, or did humans routinely get turned to match their vampire partners? Patrick didn’t want to be a vampire. It was scary enough to feel this strongly about someone when he was only 19. He was pretty damn crazy about Pete, he had to admit to himself. That didn’t make him ready for the prospect of immortality together. For the moment he just said,

“Maybe Gabriel could help you. I know he’s not your creator and all that crap, but if you feel - like - what you said - _pressure_ \- maybe there’s a way to - uh - push back against it. I don’t know man, I’m just throwing ideas out. It couldn’t hurt to try?”

“I guess not,” Pete said, turning determinedly back to the television. “Maybe after the merfolk thingy.”

“Right. The merfolk thingy,” Patrick said. “I should probably do some more research.”

  
  


*

Teasing the straightener through his light brown hair, Mikey considered himself in his bedroom mirror. Apparently there was a human myth that vampires didn’t have reflections, which would certainly have been inconvenient. He tucked the last strands into place and briefly considered some eyeliner, but he figured this was a night for blending in, not for attracting attention. His safe choice of a black t-shirt, jeans and a nondescript black jacket served that purpose well enough. He still looked like a vampire, if the observer knew what they were looking for, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about that, and if people were coming out specifically to see a band fronted by a vampire, surely they couldn’t hate him on sight for it.

Now it was simply a matter of getting out of the house undetected. It wasn’t like Mikey was a prisoner or anything, but if Gerard caught him slipping out at this hour he would want to know where he was going, what he was doing, and Mikey wasn’t a very good liar, especially not to his brother. He knew Gee was in his office, so he waited until he heard somebody knock on the door, and then Gerard said,

“Come in.”

Then came muffled voices from behind his door - that was James Dewees, no doubt about something to do with the maintenance of the mansion, so it would be a while. Dewees never managed to explain anything quickly. Mikey slipped down the stairs and through the hallway and was almost to the back door when -

“Where are you going?”

Shit.

“Hey Frankie,” Mikey sighed.

Frank was leaning against a doorway, a speculative expression on his naturally mischievous face. Frankie could be dressed as an altar boy and still look vaguely guilty of something. The newest and youngest member of the extended Way clan, he’d been turned in the early 1930s - he was always vague on the details, but it had involved running alcohol and some kind of deal gone wrong. Mikey guessed if he had to be caught by anyone, Frank was his best option - more outgoing and gregarious than most of the Way associates, he tended to handle any business with outsiders that couldn’t be avoided.

“I’m just going to see some people,” Mikey said.

“You don’t know any people,” said Frank. “At least, you don’t know any people I don’t know too. Where are you really going?”

“Alright - shh, keep it down,” Mikey muttered. Vampire hearing had its advantages, but privacy in a big household definitely wasn’t one of them. He put his hand on Frank’s arm and steered him so they were facing away from Gerard’s office. “I’m sneaking out.”

“Well yeah - I got that much,” said Frank. “But why?”

“Because I want to go to a club.”

Frank’s eyes lit up.

“A human club,” Mikey clarified.

Frank frowned. “But why?”

“Because! I miss going to shows, that’s why! Why not? _You_ used to be human.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Frank rolled his eyes. “Totally didn’t know what I was missing. Everything about being a vampire is so much cooler. Why would you want to go hang out with humans? They pretty much suck. Which is ironic.”

“Shh, talk quietly! I found this one band, okay, they’re humans, but they’ve got a vampire frontman.”

Frank stared at him for a long moment. Then: “Nah,” he said.

“Yep,” said Mikey.

“What?! Man, that’s weird as hell!”

“Exactly! I want to see! I never get to see anything, Frank, and I want to see them play! So just - keep your mouth shut, okay, and if Gerard asks, we were up in my room all night, doing something responsible.”

“Even Gee wouldn’t buy _that_ ,” Frank grinned. “Don’t worry though. I’ll make up something believable. But I want in on this, Mikeyway. If we both go he’ll notice. I want a detailed report, and on the off chance it turns out to not be some kind of bullshit, I want to meet this freak.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Mikey promised him, and left before anyone else heard him.


	3. Chapter 3

“We need to do it tonight,” said Andy. He’d been studying the Dandies’ book, which had turned out to be a reference on assorted supernatural creatures. Most of them bore at least superficial relation to a human myth or legend. Patrick and Joe had spent most of the past few days alternately freaking out about the abrupt shift in their worldview and theorising about weird people and things they’d encountered earlier in their lives, anything that had struck them as odd at the time, and what might actually have been happening:

“And that one guy from ninth grade, Eric or whatever! Who was all like a loner and short and had acne and then he came back after summer and he was like - tall and cool! And had friends and a hot girlfriend!” Joe exclaimed. “Oh my God, I bet he was a witch. Or a shapeshifter!”

“Orrrr maybe puberty was just kind to him,” said Pete. He was taking the whole supernatural realm very much in his stride, but Joe guessed he’d had a fair bit of experience with shifts in worldview by now. “Just cos we never got our growth spurts Joe, it does happen to most guys you know.”

“Fuck off, I could still grow,” Joe glared at him. “Guys can grow till they’re like 22. Anyway I _have_ grown already. I’m taller than you now.”

Naturally this had degenerated into a height-measuring competition (Joe _was_ taller now, ha! He knew it, even though Pete tried to cheat with his stupid teased hairstyle) and then shoving each other, then wrestling, until Andy had interrupted them. He had the book open in front of him and was simultaneously clicking around on the computer.

“Dude, we have a show tonight!” Joe objected.

“Tonight’s the new moon - the one night a month when they’re significantly weakened. Do you want to wait for more people to die?”

“We can’t just bail on the gig,” Patrick worried. “It's important, the label will drop us.” 

“It's cool,” said Pete. “We’re on at nine, we’ll be done by ten thirty, we’ll get out of there fast and take the truck directly down to the beach. We’ll be in and out before sunrise if we’re smart about it.”

“So…what exactly is the plan of attack?” Joe asked.

“We have to draw them out,” Patrick said. “One of us will pretend to swim and get in trouble.”

“Me,” Pete said. “I’m fastest.”

“They’ll recognise you as a vampire,” Andy said. “Even through the water. They can smell it.”

“We do not smell!” Pete objected.

“Not to humans,” Andy rolled his eyes. “To them you do. I’ll do it, I’m a good swimmer.”

“Then I’ll harpoon them, right?” Joe grinned. He was maybe a little bit proud of himself for adapting one of the crossbows. The hook wouldn’t kill the mer-whatever, but it would weaken it, allowing him to reel it out onto the beach, where it would dry out and then die.

“That sounds awfully ...slow,” Andy said disapprovingly.

“So does drowning people and eating them alive,” Joe objected. “Come on man, we don’t have time to figure out humane merfolk euthanasia. You said it yourself, more people will die.”

“You just want to use the harpoon,” Andy said.

“Hell yeah I want to use the harpoon! That took me over twelve hours man, you think I’m gonna let Patrick fire it?”

“Hey!” Patrick said.

“Nothing personal,” said Joe.

“Fine, I don’t know,” Andy rolled his eyes. “I'm just not comfortable with it.”

“You’ve been comfortable staking vampires for six years and you didn’t even think they could be people,” Joe pointed out.

“You think I don’t think about that?” Andy snapped, and Joe shut up. Andy was complicated, though he pretended not to be. They’d been hunting and playing together for two years now, and sometimes Joe still got the feeling he didn’t know him at all.

Patrick, Pete and Joe all went back to the apartment to pick up their guitars and get ready for the evening’s show. Finding out Andy could play drums had been a crazy coincidence. (Joe thought it was a coincidence anyway. Pete thought it was destiny and fate, but well, he would). It had also, finally, stopped Patrick complaining that he was ‘really more of a drummer, guys’, because Andy was fucking amazing at drumming and none of the rest of them could sing. Andy said he would pick them all up in the truck at seven forty-five, so they’d have plenty of time to get to the club and set up their equipment. He still technically lived outside the city limits, but Joe was pretty sure he was just going to stay at the warehouse and research. Pete occupied the bathroom until absolutely the last moment:

“Oh my God, get out!” Joe banged on the door. “We’re gonna be late and I have to piss!”

“Just - hang on!” There was a couple of thuds, then the door finally swung open and Pete emerged - covered almost entirely head-to-toe in glitter. Joe and Patrick both stared at him for a long moment.

“What the hell happened?” Joe asked. Patrick cleared his throat politely and said,

“Uh - Pete - what are you wearing?”

Underneath the glitter, Pete was dressed in a tight pink t-shirt and jeans that appeared to be painted on, plus a lurid purple striped hoodie and white heeled boots covered in silver stars.

“I’m subverting the gender binary,” said Pete.

“You’re gonna get beaten up,” said Patrick.

“Um, hello? Supernatural strength here?” Pete said, at the same time as Joe said,

“Why do you look like a teenage prostitute though?”

“Joe that is sexist. And homophobic, probably. If anyone tries to beat me up I’ll just have to subvert the gender binary _even more_ on them. Did you know that vampires have historically been a symbol of queer sexuality?”

“Andy said they’re a symbol of late-capitalist predation, a facist elitist class that sustains itself on the blood of the working classes.”

“Yeah well that too,” Pete conceded. “But I’m a revolutionary vampire, okay? I'm like a class traitor. Now come on, we need to get out of here. Do I look hot?” He directed the last question at Patrick, thankfully.

“You look, um. Very revolutionary,” said Patrick obligingly. Pete gave a short nod of approval. They all grabbed their instruments and piled into the truck - Andy was already outside, naturally. He looked at Pete for a long moment. Then he just said,

“Okay,” and pulled out into the traffic stream.

The Edge was, as the name suggested, primarily a straight edge club, with a zero tolerance policy on drugs and intoxication. There was no licensed bar, but patrons were allowed to bring their own alcohol if they were old enough. If anybody got visibly wasted, though, they were kicked out, and kids were allowed to attend most shows from the age of fifteen and up. As they parked, Joe peered out of the passenger window and took a look at the queue so far. It seemed like a surprising number of high school-age girls had turned out to see them play. Or, not to see _them,_ he realized as they all got out, so much as -

“PETE!!”

“Hey Pete, you’re really hot!”

“Oh-Em-Gee, Pete, sign my t-shirt!”

“Sign her tits!”

With that the whole group collapsed in hysterical laughter and started shoving at each other.

“Heeey you guys!” said Pete, like he’d known these kids his entire life. “You’re ‘kate_was_like’ from the messageboards, right? And you’re ‘theproblemkid429’?”

‘Messageboards?’ Joe mouthed to Patrick, who shrugged and spread his hands with a don’t-ask-me expression. Joe grabbed an amp and dragged it past Pete and his groupies with a vague sense of annoyance, tempted to say something like ‘Gosh, what a shame we don’t have anybody with superhuman strength around to help us move all this heavy equipment’, but Patrick grabbed the amp’s other handle, visibly stifling his laughter. Pete was signing autographs for the kids now. Literally signing autographs. Much more of this and they really would start being known as The Fall Out Boys.

The Edge was a pretty small club, the stage not much more than a couple of blocks pushed together, but the floor was surprisingly crowded already.

“Who’s the main act?” Joe asked. “Do we know them?”

“Uh, you guys _are_ the main act.” The club’s manager, an old college friend of Andy’s had overheard them and come around the bar to meet them. Joe blinked:

“We are?”

“We are,” Pete confirmed, reappearing carrying nothing and slinging an arm each around Joe and Patrick’s shoulders. “I’ve been networking.”

“All these people are here to see us?” Patrick looked a bit wide-eyed.

“Yep.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever sung in front of so many people before,” said Patrick.

“You’ll be awesome,” said the club manager. “I’ve seen you guys play.”

“Sometimes I forget the words when I get nervous,” Patrick confessed, then looked like he wanted to punch himself. 

“You could imagine the audience naked,” Joe offered, at which Patrick looked totally horrified, so Joe put his head down and busied himself setting up their equipment. The club guy introduced them, even getting their name right, then they launched into a new song they’d been practicing, written about one of Pete’s exes. It was maybe slightly weird, Joe thought, that Patrick was composing most of the music to Pete’s clever, vicious put-downs and poetic self-flagellation over his failed relationships, but the kids were eating it right up and the riffs were pretty epic if Joe did say so himself. The kids were totally into it though, jumping up and down and screaming along to the songs they knew already. Joe grinned involuntarily, excitement and adrenaline pulsing through him in time with the song’s rhythm. Really, who gave a fuck if the kids made Pete into some kind of vampire heartthrob? There was no other feeling like this. He looked up - and his fingers missed the fret, as his eyes fell on a guy stood alone at the very back of the room. He was leaning against the wall, staring at the stage, holding totally, preternaturally still. Joe knew that kind of stillness.

What the hell was a vampire doing here?

The only vampires they were on good terms with were Saporta’s Dandies, which this guy certainly wasn’t. He was dressed in a nondescript modern style, and would have blended in perfectly well with the rest of the crowd, were it not for the unmistakable aura of _vampireness_ Joe was now well-practiced in spotting. Unknown vampires were always potentially dangerous, and an unknown vampire at their show was positively alarming. 16 Candles hadn’t exactly made them beloved in the vampire world. Joe glanced over at Pete, but he seemed to be concentrating hard on his bass playing. He tried Patrick, but Patrick had pulled his cap over his eyes, presumably so he wouldn’t have to look at the audience. Joe turned all the way around, trying to pass it off as some sort of cool spinning manoeuvre, and hissed

,

“Andy! Vampire at seven o’ clock!” As loud as he could over the music.

Andy looked in the direction of seven o’ clock, which actually wasn’t where the vampire was standing, Joe had gotten confused by the direction of his rotation. But it didn’t take him more than a couple of minutes to locate the vamp. His eyes widened, but he didn’t miss a beat, the professional little fucker. He looked back at Joe and nodded sharply, then when they finished that song, stood up and indicated to Pete and Patrick they needed to take a break.

“Uhhhh, we’ll be back in five, don’t go anywhere!” Pete grabbed Patrick’s microphone and addressed the crowd. “This is Fall Out Boy! You rock guys!” Then to Andy:

“What’s up?” 

They were all breathless, sweat-soaked and buzzed with the performance. Joe indicated everyone to gather at the back of the stage.

“There’s a vampire in the crowd,” Joe said. “Not a Dandy. I don’t think he belongs to any of the gangs.”

“A loner? Where?” Pete frowned, and immediately started peering around, craning his neck over the others to scan the crowd.

“Can you not make it so obvious?” Joe hissed.

“He’s at the back between the fire exit and the door to the coat room,” Andy said. Joe watched as Patrick and Pete both recognised the vampire, their eyes widening one at a time.

“Okay, so…he’s only one and not doing anything,” Patrick offered. “Should we just…carry on, or...?”

“How do we know there aren’t more?” Joe said quietly. 

“There aren’t more,” Pete said.

“Huh?” said Joe.

“I can feel him,” Pete said quietly. “Look, I can’t explain it here. But now you’ve pointed him out and I’m thinking about it I can feel he’s there. If there were any others around I could feel them too.” 

Joe stared at him. Pete never talked about the whole psychic side of being a vampire before now. Joe had half-thought he didn’t experience it at all, maybe as a result of living with humans.

“Weird. They don’t usually come out alone,” the tense set of Andy’s mouth belied his calm tone.

“Well, look, there’s one of him and four of us,” said Patrick reasonably. “If he was gonna start turning random kids there would be plenty of easier ways for him to do it. Why don’t we just finish the set, then we’ll find out what he wants, okay?”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” said Pete, shrugging and readjusting his bass with one hand.

“Alright,” Andy shook his head slightly. “Let’s just - keep an eye on him for the rest of the show.”

Joe was more than willing to do that, and kept glancing up at the vampire as he played, but then he had to look down at his fingers for several tricky bars in a row, and when he looked back up again the vampire was gone. 

“Pete!” he hissed.

“I know,” Pete said in his ear. “I think he’s close, but don’t worry. I don’t feel danger.” (And - Pete could feel danger now? _That_ might have been nice to know on several previous occasions). They wrapped up the set, and Pete took several minutes to thank the crowd, told them to add Fall Out Boy on MySpace, and wished them goodnight, then they all hurried backstage as fast as was socially excusable. The so-called dressing room was little more than a broom closet, but it held their cases, and they all packed up their instruments as quickly as they could.

“The vampire,” said Joe.

“We need to get to the beach,” said Andy. 

“We need to find out what he wants!”

“Quickly. After tonight the merfolk start getting stronger again, and I think we need every advantage we can get.”

“Maybe I could help,” said a voice from behind them, and they all jumped simultaneously and turned around.

The vampire from earlier was standing in the hallway, looking like nothing more than an ineffably supernatural college student. 

“Dude!” Pete exclaimed. “How did you sneak up on me?”

“Oh sorry,” said the vampire. “Was I shielding very hard? I’m not used to being around so many humans, I didn’t mean to startle you or anything.”

“Uhhh wait just a second here,” said Joe. “Who are you? Why are you here? How did you get backstage?”

“Back _stage?”_ said the vampire, looking up and down the admittedly unimpressive hallway.

“Oh you know what I mean,” said Joe crossly. “Andy, doesn’t your buddy have some security in this place?”

“He doesn’t normally get celebrities,” said Andy, with a dry look at Pete, so he had noticed the little fanclub meeting earlier.

“Well, I read the review of your Metro show, and I wanted to see you,” said the vampire.

“THAT’S NOT OUR NAME!” Patrick almost screamed. “I mean um. We’re called Fall Out Boy. Not The Fall Out Boys. Just Fall Out Boy.”

“Yes, that’s much better,” said the vampire. “For what it's worth, I thought the reviewer was pretty harsh. You were good.”

“Thanks,” said Joe warily. “Do you, uh. Play?”

“Yes, I’m in a band,” said the vampire. “Or, well, I was. They’re not so much interested in it anymore.” He sounded a bit sad.

“What’s your name?” said Andy, who at least seemed to be taking the threat seriously, even if Pete and Patrick were inexplicably blasé about it. “Are you part of a crew?”

“My name is Mikey,” said the vampire. “I suppose it depends what you mean by a crew.”

“Wait - not - are you _Mikey Way?”_ Pete said suddenly. 

“Yes!” said Mikey Way brightly. “And you must be Peter Wentz, and you must be Jake Troham.”

“OH MY GOD, IT’S JOE! MY NAME IS JOSEPH TROHMAN! IT ISN’T DIFFICULT!”

“Mikey Way of _The Ways?”_ Pete persisted.

_“_ Oh, you’ve heard of us.”

“Well, yeah. But - no offense man - I kind of thought you were an urban legend.”

“We are rather reclusive,” Mikey Way said. “You wouldn’t be the first person to think that.”

“Do you really not drink from humans?” Pete asked.

“We do not,” said Mikey Way: “That’s disgusting.”

“So you just live off synth blood? All the time?”

“Pretty much. Occasionally we drink from animals if they died of natural causes. What do you drink?”

“Well - the synth stuff mostly.” Pete looked guilty. “But occasionally blood banks, and once or twice a vampire groupie, when I really really need to. Never from anyone not willing.”

“Why would you need to?” Mikey Way looked confused.

“Well - because -”

“Hey you guys,” Andy interrupted them. “This is all very fascinating and we do sincerely hope you can help Pete out with the blood thing, but we’re all kind of on the clock tonight.”

“Oh yes! Didn’t you say you had trouble with merfolk?” said Mikey Way. “We’ve had trouble with them before, in the 1880s. I can definitely help.”


	4. Chapter 4

It was going to happen sooner or later, Patrick figured gloomily. Pete was totally out of his league as a human. As a vampire...well. It was almost silly. And hey - maybe humans and vampires just weren’t meant to be together after all. Patrick had never gone in too much for that star-crossed lovers shit.

He knew that his thoughts were running away with him, that he was going too far. But it was pretty rough to just sit there alone in the very back of the truck while Pete and Mikey Way talked nonstop in the seats in front of him. They seemed to find each other intensely interesting. Mikey Way was everything Patrick wasn’t. Pretty. Skinny. Tall. (Okay, not actually _tall_ tall. Probably average height, which was tall to Patrick and Pete in any case). He was also, obviously, a vampire. A vampire with decades, maybe centuries of accumulated knowledge and experience, psychic powers, and the ability to survive entirely without human blood.

Patrick should probably just break up with Pete now, and save them both the embarrassment

“I haven’t fought with the merfolk in a long time,” Mikey said. “They were much more active a hundred years ago. What kind of steel did you bring?”

They all looked at him, except Andy, who was driving.

“Steel,” said Joe.

“Yes, steel! It's the most effective metal against them, didn’t you know that?”

“Evidently we didn’t,” said Joe. Joe seemed pretty suspicious of Mikey Way purely on the grounds of his being a vampire. Patrick thought that was slightly unfair, but then Patrick probably had a pro-vampire bias now, seeing as he was dating Pete. (Or - he thought he was dating Pete. Oh, come on now. He seriously needed to stop this chain of thought).

“Alright, that’s the beach.” Andy made a quick right turn and they pulled into the parking lot. It was mostly deserted, except for a small group of college kids who were barbecuing near the open trunk of one car. Andy made a disapproving face at the scattering of beer cans and chip packets on the ground, but contained himself. Luckily the kids were pretty busy with their party: a guy and a girl were making out, her sitting on the edge of the trunk, while their friends cheered them on and someone else adjusted the bass from a big pair of speakers. Mikey Way stared at them, eyes wide:

“Dude,” said Pete, steering him slightly away. “How about be a bit subtle, yeah, we don’t want to be remembered.”

Joe hefted the weapons bag from the boot of the truck, and they all traipsed down to the water’s edge. It was cold already and very dark with the absence of a moon, and only a few stars. Patrick thought he could make out a couple of people far in the distance, but the beach was mostly empty. The Great Lakes didn’t have tides, but it was windy enough that small waves tipped with white foam washing over and over each other in a hypnotising rhythm. The water looked black.

“You really don’t have any steel darts?” Mikey was looking through Joe’s crossbow bolts.

“There was nothing in the book about that,” said Joe. “I have silver and iron. That’s what we always use.”

“Alright,” said Mikey doubtfully. “I guess between me and Pete, we’d be stronger than one of the merfolk anyway.”

“Cool,” Andy was wasting no time. He stripped down to his shorts and t-shirts. Joe tossed him a small red gun.

“That won’t hurt them,” Mikey said.

“We know,” said Joe. “It’s a calcium flare. They work in water. He’s gonna fire it when the mer-thingy appears and tries to grab him, so we can run up and save the day.” Apparently Joe and Andy had been refining the plan. Patrick felt a tiny bit guilty for his earlier distraction. Andy gave them a short nod and waded out into the sea. Patrick winced with a sympathetic sense of cold, but Andy didn’t so much as flinch, executing a smooth, head-first dive once he got to the waist-deep water.

“You’re supposed to be acting like you CAN’T swim!” Pete yelled to him, and Andy flipped him off without bothering to surface fully. He front-crawled parallel to the shoreline for several meters, cutting through the water with clean, even strokes.

Nothing happened.

“Maybe they won’t attack if we’re all standing here watching,” Patrick said.

“Possibly,” Mikey said. “But I mean if you want to be sure he could just bleed a bit.”

“What, does it work like sharks?” Pete said. 

“Sort of. I mean, they don’t eat humans, but they do have an incredible sense of smell. So if this one is attacking humans for whatever reason, that’s probably how it's tracking them.”

“HEY ANDY!” Pete yelled at the top of his lungs. So much for the low profile. It took Andy a moment to realize he was shouting, but when he did, they all waved for him to come on back to the shoreline.

“What?” he said, standing up, dripping wet.

“It’s not gonna work just like this. You have to bleed a bit in the water, and we’ll all go hide in the rocks but don’t worry, we’ll still be watching.”

“Okay,” said Andy. Patrick wondered if you could learn how to not experience fear, or if Andy was just born that way. He waded out of the shallow water and rifled in the weapons bag for a knife.

“Do you want me to like - do it for you?” Joe asked nervously.

“Nah it's cool,” Andy said. “How much blood do we need?”

“Just a drop will do it,” said Mikey, so Andy cut his finger, then headed back into the water.

“We can watch from there,” Pete pointed to a high outcrop of dark rocks that sprawled back along the beach, leading onto the cliffside. “It’s got to look less obvious than us all just chilling on the shore with a bag of weapons.”

They walked backwards to the outcrop, and Joe got his harpoon out of the back, loading it up with an iron hook attached to a long rope.

“That’s clever,” Mikey said. Joe gave him a half-smile. “I hope the rope holds though.”

“It’s a strong rope,” said Joe, “I got it from the docks. They use them on ships and stuff.” But he looked a bit worried at the prospect, as though he hadn’t given it a lot of thought. Patrick peered over the edge of the rock and squinted towards the sea:

“Can you see him?” he asked.

“Sure, right there,” Pete pointed. Vampire vision was something else. “He’s kind of - treading water.”

“It shouldn’t be long,” said Mikey, and sure enough, it was only a few minutes later that Pete cried,

“Now!” as the bright orange burst of the calcium flare burst over the water. They all raced back to the shoreline. For a second, there was no sign of Andy, and Patrick’s heart leapt into his throat. White foam rippled outwards from a patch of distburbed water. They all held their breath. Then suddenly Andy surfaced, yelling,

“There!” gesturing wildly to something behind him even as he tried not to break stroke. There was something big thrashing through the waves behind him. With a cool air that belied any fear he was feeling, Joe got into a shooting stance and raised the harpoon. Patrick wanted to yell

“Hurry!” - the thing was fast and it was gaining on Andy - but Joe was using all his focus to aim and-

\- He fired.

The hook splashed into the water, right in the creature’s wave trail.

“Damn it!” said Joe and reeled it back in rapidly and loaded again. The thing was less than a foot from Andy by the second time he fired. This time there was a thick, meaty thunk as the hook connected with flesh.

“Reel it in!” Pete yelled, and Joe started working frantically.

“It’s too strong, I can’t pull it!” he yelled, and Pete, Mikey and Patrick all both grabbed the rope at different points and pulled. It was like an insane tug-of-war, Patrick thought briefly (and wasn’t there a picture book where a whole bunch of people or animals pulled on a rope, and the smallest and weakest creature tipped the balance so they won the contest? Maybe Patrick could be like that). The thing on the other end was insanely strong. The rope stretched taut, all the fibres fraying, and Patrick was sure they would break. Then with a sudden give, a large, heavy _thing_ lurched up out of the water, thrashing and twisting on the hook.

It was bigger than a man, maybe seven or eight feet in length when you counted its tail. Unlike the book illustration, its scales were a muddy brown, but wet, black eyes were just like in the picture. It's hair looked like seaweed, thick dark green ropes, and it's body rippled with muscles under the grey skin and scales. It was monstrous, and to his shame, Patrick felt himself less guilty about killing the thing once he saw what it looked like. Andy waded out of the water as quickly as he could, grabbed the rope with them, and that was enough to yank the thing right out of the water and on to dry land.

“Awesome!” Joe laughed, and lost concentration, which gave the thing time fling itself on top of him - a horrible flopping motion that clearly cost it strength, along with the black liquid leaking around the hook in its side. But it was still much, much stronger than Joe, and when Patrick, Pete, Joe and Mikey tried to pull it off of him together, they couldn’t do it. It seemed to be fired up with adrenalin or something, and the best they could do was try to keep it’s claws and fangs away from Joe, who was screaming:

“We need steel!” Mikey yelled. “Think!”

“The guitar strings!” Patrick almost felt the light bulb appear over his head. “The strings are steel! They’re in the truck!”

“Well, go get them!” Mikey yelled, and Patrick ran faster than he’d probably ever run in his life. The college kids were still busy with their party - a few of them paused to laugh at him as he nearly tripped over himself because, hey, why would that part of his life have changed along with the rest of the world? Naturally Patrick hadn’t thought about bringing the keys, but one of the rear windows didn’t close properly ever since Pete got it jammed during some kind of playfight with Joe. Patrick reached through and yanked the lock open manually, then grabbed the closest guitar case and emptied the extra string packets out. He dashed back to the shore, where everyone was in pretty much the same state, and his first impulse was to just hand the strings to Mikey because, well, Mikey seemed to know what he was doing, but Mikey was occupied holding the thing’s head back from tearing Joe’s face off. Patrick ripped open the packets, pulled out the steel string, and wrapped it around the creature’s neck, jerking back as it tried to bite him. When he pulled the string taut, it gurgled horribly - smoke rose from where the steel touched it, then its skin began to fizz and more and more of the black liquid pooled around the steel. Patrick gagged, but forced himself not to let go:

“Pull it tight now!” Mikey yelled, and Patrick yanked on both ends of the guitar string. It sank deep into the creature’s flesh, the thing retched, and black liquid spewed out of it's mouth directly into Joe’s face.

“Get it off me!” Joe screamed, as the thing collapsed on him, eyes half-open but glassy. It was dead weight. They hauled it off, and it didn’t move.

“Is it - dead?” Joe said hoarsely.

“It’s dead,” Mikey confirmed, prodding the thing hesitantly with his shoe. It did not react.

“Patrick you’re a hero!” Pete yelled, flinging himself at Patrick and wrapping his arms around him. Patrick caught him rather than let him fall on his ass, but he didn’t feel much like hugging. He didn’t feel much like a hero, either. He felt kind of sick. 

“It was killing people,” Andy reminded him.

“It was about to kill me!” Joe said. “Thanks man, that was smart as hell.”

“Well it's a good thing Mikey knew about the steel thing,” said Pete. He’d wrapped his legs around Patrick so that Patrick was essentially forced to pick him up.

“Are you okay?” Andy asked Joe. “Did it bite or scratch you anywhere?”

“Nah I’m good,” Joe brushed himself off and inspected himself. “Let’s go back to the trunk.”

“Carry me Trick,” said Pete dramatically, fluttering his eyelashes and laying his head on Patrick’s shoulder. “You’re my hero.”

Joe burst out laughing and even Andy cracked a smile. Patrick was tired, but he couldn’t help feel a bit smug holding Pete while Mikey looked on in apparent total confusion, even if Pete was just messing around. Andy and Joe picked up the weapons, Mikey hauled the deadweight body back into the lake, and they watched for a moment until they were sure the waves had carried it away. Then they all turned to head back towards the parking lot, only to be immediately faced with -

“Holy SHIT!”

Three of the college kids from earlier were standing where the path met the sand, their eyes wide, frozen in shock and apparently having witnessed the whole event.

Patrick dropped Pete. Pete staggered for a second then righted himself.

“Dudes! What the FUCK, dudes!” The kid in front ran his hand through his spiky blond hair. “What the FUCK was that thing?!” He pointed towards the waves.

“I, uh...guess it's too much to hope you mean the seasonal wave patterns?” Joe joked weakly. “And, oh great, your friend has a cameraphone. Naturally. Twenty-first century, yay.”

“Goddamit, I’m out of storage,” the girl with the phone said. “I definitely got some good shots, though.”

“Um, about that,” said Mikey. “Would you mind just - deleting those pictures? You see, I’m not really supposed to be-”

“No way!” said the girl. “That was some kind of - monster thing! Like a human fish! Man, like on the X-Files! I’m about to get a million followers on MySpace!”

Pete looked speculative.

“You stop that train of thought right now,” Patrick said to him.

“That was pretty rad, how you killed the thing,” said the other boy to Patrick. “Are you guys like - superheroes or something?”

Patrick barked a laugh. “That would be a generous way to put it.”

“16 Candles Hunting Agency, at your service,” Joe had apparently decided to roll with the situation, and sketched a little mock-salute in the air. “I’d give you a card, but I’m covered in lake slime, and also we don’t have one.”

“And that thing you were hunting was a…?” said the girl.

“Some kind of vampire, obviously,” said Joe. “I guess it just. Liked swimming.”

The college kids all stared at him like they couldn’t believe he’d just tried that.

“Guys let’s get out of here,” said the first boy. “These guys are crazy.”

  
  


*

It wasn’t like Gerard used the internet, Mikey figured, or had much connection to the twenty-first century in general. It would be fine. It would probably be fine. Of course, what he hadn’t figured on was the fact that what goes on the internet certainly doesn’t stay on the internet, and Gerard did occasionally open a local paper.

_MONSTER OF MONTROSE BEACH DEAD?!_ Blared the headline, then:

_U of Chicago students claim ‘‘water vampire’ killed at Great Lakes._

Well, that didn’t even take twenty-four hours. Mikey remembered when journalism was a noble profession. Kind of. He remembered when journalists didn’t literally download the contents of teenagers’ MySpace accounts and add a byline.

“Sorry man,” said Frank sympathetically. “Gee wants you to go to his office. I tried to rip the page out but I guess he saw it already.”

“Go to his office, like he’s the headteacher or something,” Mikey grumbled, but he felt unnerved. Sure he pissed his brother off all the time, and vice versa, but this was the first time that Gerard had given him a direct order as head of the clan and Mikey had disobeyed it. Gerard wouldn’t really be angry with him, he thought uneasily. Not for long, anyway. And maybe the photos would be really bad, and he could just claim it was a guy who happened to look like him?

The photos weren’t really bad.

They weren’t really great, either, but the figure in the background of the biggest one, dragging the merman’s body into the ocean was clearly Mikey. Closer to the camera, Joe was inspecting the hook of his harpoon, and Pete was apparently trying to climb Patrick. Andy was out of the shot, which was just as well. He was the only one of them who really looked like a hunter.

“So,” Gerard said, pulling the paper back across his desk. “You snuck out.”

“Yeah,” said Mikey. There was no point in saying anything else. He avoided Gee’s eyes and studied the corners of his office instead. Grandmother’s taste in decor was still all over it - dark, curling wooden alcoves, heavy curtains, a rug that looked ancient and Persian and might well have been. The walls were hung with pictures of their ancestors, most now long dust or staked, and all of them seemed to look down on Mikey with disapproval.

“I directly forbade you from doing something, for the first time. And you did it anyway.” Gerard didn’t sound angry. He sounded mildly surprised. 

“Well you shouldn’t have forbidden me!” Mikey said. 

Gerard stared at him. “Mikey,” he said. “Do you understand that I am the Head of the Way Clan? I didn’t ask to be. I didn’t _want_ to be. But Grandmother made me her successor, and here I am. Do you understand what that _means?”_

“Yeah,” said Mikey.

“No, you don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t have disobeyed me even if I _was_ wrong to forbid you!” For the first time, he sounded agitated. “ _I’m_ responsible for the future of this clan now, Mikey! That’s seven hundred years of history, most of which you haven’t even bothered to learn! You know, I’ve always tried to protect you. Maybe I’ve protected you too much, because you seem to have absolutely no concept of how dangerous other vampires are - not to mention _hunters!”_

“They aren’t like that!” Mikey objected. “They only kill things that are killing people! Pete says-”

“Pete,” said Gerard flatly. “Pete, is it? Are you friends now?”

“Yes,” said Mikey stubbornly. “I _like_ him. You’d like him too if you got to know him.”

“Does he drink people?”

“Well - sometimes - only if -”

“Then he’s both dangerous and a target. And associating with these people makes _you_ a target, even if the hunters don’t just turn around and stake you on principle. You are incredibly lucky you came back last night Mikey, and you don’t even believe it. Obviously I’m going to have to start doing things differently.”

“Differently? How?”

“From now on, you don’t leave the premises without my explicit permission and at least two guards. And you won’t have that permission for a while.”

“How - how long is a while?” 

“I don’t know yet. But I’m assigning Bob to keep an eye on you until...well, until you earn my trust again.”

That stung. He deserved it, but it still stung. Gerard softened:

“I’m sorry I have to do this to you Mikey. It isn’t fun for me either. But the safety of the clan and especially the family is my priority now. It has to be.”

  
  


“I guess you’ve made your decision then.” Mikey blinked, surprised to find tears pricking at the back of his eyes. “Can I go to my room now?”

“You can go,” said Gerard. “I’ll send Bob up to fetch you for dinner.”


	5. Chapter 5

Patrick woke up suddenly. The bed was cold.It was cold because Pete was gone. This in itself wasn’t unusual. Vampirism hadn’t made Pete a better or worse sleeper, although now he could physically function for longer without sleep. Patrick had always been a night owl himself, so now that Pete’s biology favoured being awake at night, they’d taken to going to bed in the small hours and getting up around noon, if Pete didn’t get up sooner.

Usually, when this happened, Patrick would just go back to sleep again. Pete didn’t necessarily want to talk to anyone when he couldn’t sleep, and if he did, he would typically wake Patrick. But the night’s events had left Patrick unsettled, and though he’d only been asleep for a few hours, it was already full daylight. He decided to get up, used the bathroom quietly so as not to disturb Joe, then paused in the kitchen doorway. 

Pete was sitting at the kitchen table with his back to the door. He was hunched over, writing quickly in one of his notebooks. The sharp lines of his shoulderblades, the protrusion of vertebrae in the back of his neck struck Patrick as oddly vulnerable, which was weird, seeing as the number of things that could physically harm Pete was a lot more limited now. Morning light caught the edge of his jawline and throat, and Patrick was rendered momentarily helpless, struck to the core by how goddamn _pretty_ Pete was - it was _unfair_ , how he felt about Pete. Particularly now.

“Oh - Trick,” Pete realized Patrick was there, and he turned around. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”

“Nah,” said Patrick. “I was awake.” He went over and kissed the top of Pete’s head, sliding his arms around his shoulders. “What are you working on? Is it lyrics?”

“Um. I. Maybe.” Pete closed the notebook. “Not ready yet.”

“Okay,” said Patrick, deliberately lightly, and went to turn on the coffee pot. “You want some coffee?” 

Pete could still eat and drink human foods, though they didn’t do anything to sustain him without blood. He said he could still taste, but he said it was muted, like everything was bland institutional food with weak flavours. Caffeine still worked on him to an extent, and he hadn’t lost that particular addiction:

“Yeah,” said Pete, rubbing his eyes.

“Everything okay?” Patrick said while the coffee was heating up.

“Sure,” said Pete. Patrick sighed internally. He knew that tone. It meant, absolutely not, but don’t push me. Pete would tell him about it when he was ready.

At least, he always had so far.

Patrick brought the coffee to the table.

“You were awesome at the beach,” Pete told him.

Patrick shrugged. Now he’d had time to think, he did feel a tiny bit proud of himself for his quick thinking, though the sense-memory of garroting a merman wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

“I mean it,” Pete squeezed his fingers. “You know I like to mess with you sometimes Tricky, but you were great. You’re so brave and smart.”

Patrick felt his mouth quirk a little at the extent of Pete’s affectionate delusion. “It’s damn lucky Mikey Way was there,” he said. 

“I know, right?! I can’t believe he just came out in public like that!”

“About that,” Patrick put his coffee down. “Am I supposed to have recognised this guy?”

‘Well - maybe not him, but his _name._ You don’t know about the Ways? What the heck are you reading about in your vampire lore books all the time?”

‘Stuff that could help you, mostly,’ Patrick thought, but he said, “Stuff to help us hunt. Mostly I tend to stick to the practical side of things.”

“Okay well,” Pete sipped his coffee and thought for a minute. “The Ways are like, a super old family, really famous to other vampires, but also really mysterious. They keep to themselves, never send representatives to any councils or meetings or get involved in fights. There are all these rumours about them, like they manifest weird powers even by vampire standards - there was one that could levitate, supposedly, and one that could like - what do you call it, when you can move things with your mind?”

“Telekinesis,” supplied Patrick.

“Yeah, some of them are supposed to have telekinesis. Even weirder stuff. They know tons of magic and history and if even half of the rumours are true, they could probably take over the world if they wanted to.”

“But they don’t want to,” said Patrick.

“Apparently not. They don’t even drink human blood. I really thought that one couldn’t be true. But it is,” he shrugged.

“Well. Mikey says so,” Patrick said.

Pete looked at him with wide brown eyes. “Why would he lie?” he asked. 

“No idea,” Patrick said. “But I mean. We don’t exactly know him, do we?”

Pete put his head on one side and gave him an odd look. 

“I really think I would sense it if he had ill-intent towards us, Rick. He feels friendly. Not at all like when-....” he cut himself off, and looked down.

“Like when you can sense Him,” said Patrick.

Pete shrugged, a little jerking motion. He looked upset.

“You know,” said Patrick hesitantly. “If you ever want to talk about that…”

“It’s been happening more often,” Pete blurted out. Something flashed through his eyes, fearful and sharp. “And it’s stronger. I don’t know if it's _Him_ getting stronger, or he’s closer, or he’s figuring out how to get around my shields. He’s - he wants me,” Pete looked scared now. “I don’t know why he cares so much, if I like, spite him just by existing out here - but I can feel how angry he is.”

“Well,” said Patrick, and got up. He came around the table, put his arms around Pete, and squeezed him briefly. “He can’t have you.”

Pete gave a sad half-smile and kissed Patrick’s cheek, then blinked and shook his head a little. Patrick stood up and went to put his mug in the sink. “In any case,” Pete said with forced brightness. “I’m definitely looking forward to getting off of human blood. Some of these vampire groupies are real creeps. I just need to find out what Mikey does.”

“Okay.”

“Hey Patrick?”

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t you like Mikey?”

“I do like him,” Patrick said.

“No you don’t, I’m not dumb, and I don’t need vampire psychic powers to tell that either. At first you seemed to trust him, then you like - changed.”

Patrick kept his eyes on his mug as he rinsed it out, and said to the sink,

“I don’t _not_ like him. I just got to thinking, maybe Joe’s right, and we shouldn’t trust unknown vampires so quickly.”

“Even after he helped us?”

“He could have any reason for helping us.” Patrick put the mug on the training board. Pete was looking at him with an expression that clearly said ‘this is bullshit, but I’ll leave it for now.’ He said,

“Alright. I’m gonna get in the shower.”

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


“So merfolk are a thing,” said Joe to Andy. 

“So they are,” Andy said.

“So how much of this other shit you think is out there?” Joe turned a page in Gabriel’s book. This one was headed ‘Forest Spirits’. 

“If it's in the book, I’m guessing it's out there, or at least was out there at some point. Maybe not in America - some of these seem to be location-specific.” Joe had just turned another page to ‘Leprechaun (Sprite, Pixie)’. Instead of a small humanoid in a green outfit and tophat, the illustration looked more like what Joe would call a goblin. It was naked, with leathery grey skin, long claws and a hunched posture. “That one says ‘Ireland’”.

“Well, that’s a plus,” said Joe glumly. It might have been a delayed reaction to almost getting eaten alive by a homicidal seamonster, but he was feeling kind of down.

“What’s up?” said Andy.

“I dunno,” Joe blew his breath out and ran his hands through his hair, propping his elbows up on the table. They’d turned part of the warehouse into a library area, with the small collection of books they had plus a couple more that Gabriel had given them. Joe put his head on the desk for a minute. “I just - man, when we started this thing, I thought hunting would be kind of - fun? It sounds stupid to say now, but it was all so simple. Vampires were the bad guys, we were the good guys, and I never even considered that other creatures existed. Now there’s like, good vampires. And if there are good vampires, maybe there are good merfolk, or good werewolves, or good freaking - freaking leprechauns.”

  
  


“True,” Andy said. 

  
  


“That’s not helping,” Joe picked his head up and glared at him. A piece of notebook paper stuck to his forehead and ruined the effect.

“You’re still here though,” Andy pointed out. “You could quit, you know. It's not like Pete would kick you out of the band if you stopped hunting. It's as much your band as it is his.”

“I know,” Joe says.

“But you haven’t quit.”

“Yeah because…” Joe thought. “Well, because we help people. Stop them getting killed. Like if it wasn’t for us, there are definitely people who would be dead right now but are actually alive, even if they don’t know it. And I guess - I guess it's worth it. It's worth it to me, even if I don’t know what I’m doing half the time.” He blinked. “Huh. I guess that did help.”

Andy went back to his laptop with his usual equanimity.

“So how are you so like - sure all the time?” Joe asked him.

“Who said I am?” said Andy.

“No-one. But you’re always so like, calm about things. Don’t you ever have a, like a, crisis of faith or something?”

“I’m an athiest.”

“You know what I mean.”

Andy paused, fingers still on the keyboard. “It’s not that I’m always sure of things,” he said finally. “I just think, once you’ve made a decision, with the best information available to you, there’s no point in second-guessing it. What does that help?”

“Hmm,” said Joe. Then: “So you heard this Mikey Way dude say he never drinks human blood?”

“I’ve been looking into that,” Andy clicked some keys. “Or trying. For such a famous clan, there’s very little public information available on the Ways. And what there is seems to be mostly rumour.”

“So what do you think we should do?” Joe asked.

“Well in the spirit of committing to a course,” Andy shrugged. “I think we should ask them.”

  
  


*

  
  
  


“I’m taking this out to the gardens,” Mikey said, lifting his bass guitar in it's case.

“Okay,” said Bob Bryar, and stood up.

“It's the _gardens,_ Bob,” Mikey rolled his eyes. “Even if I was thinking of making a break for it, the main gates are locked. You know that.”

“Gerard said I’m supposed to stay with you when you leave the house,” Bob said patiently. “That includes the gardens, Mikey. At least I guess it does.” Gerard and Lindsey, his wife, were visiting some of their cousins from the Jersey branch of the Ways, who were once again being harassed by the Norvin Forest faeries. So Bob couldn’t exactly go and check with him. 

“I know, I just - sorry.” Mikey blew his breath out. “I know it isn’t your fault. It's just annoying feeling like I’m being babysat. Yes, I know I deserve it,” he held up a hand. “Let’s just go.”

It was full dusk, and Mikey was comfortable outside without protection. He walked down to the stone benches surrounding the fountain. It was a sprawling, gothic piece of stonework, carved by one of their great-great-uncles, now twined over with ivy and weeds, but still working. 

“I need to clean that before your brother gets back,” Bob observed. 

“I doubt he would even notice,” Mikey said, though he knew that wasn’t the point. Bob did most of the grounds work around the mansion - Gerard had offered him an assistant several times now but he always declined. Bob Bryar, a tall stocky blonde, was actually a little older than both Mikey and Gerard, having died and been turned at the end of the Civil War. One of their removed-cousins had found him, confused and trying to drink from a battle corpse - when he learned it was possible to live without drinking from humans, he’d jumped at the chance. He’d once said he’d done enough killing for any number of lifetimes. Bob liked to work with his hands, and enjoyed being outside, so Ray had figured out a protection spell that improved his resistance to daylight. Unlike their grandmother, Gerard wasn’t particular about the state of the grounds, but Bob took a lot of pride in them. Mikey settled on one of the benches and took out his instrument. He’d aqcuired the bass guitar in New York in the 70s, and found it a lot more transportable than the double bass and cello he’d favoured in the early twentieth century. He tucked his legs up and started to pick out a slow riff that had been circling in his head since the Edge show.

“Where’s that from?” Bob asked him. He’d turned off the water, produced a shears from somewhere and started cutting away at the vines circling the fountain.

“Just my head,” said Mikey.

“I like it.”

“Hmm.”

They both worked quietly for a few minutes, until a crash and some hurried footsteps heralded the arrival of James Dewees. Dewees wasn’t technically a butler, because Gerard said that was degrading, but Dewees had basically given himself that role after Ray and Bob interruped the Punk that was about to rip his throat out. He’d been a loner before that, unable to find his place in a group, and was basically the most unvampire-like vampire Mikey had ever encountered. As evidenced by his chronic clumsiness.

“Someone’s at the gates!” he called out now. “They just buzzed the house!” and trampled over a couple of bushes, which caused Bob to close his eyes in pain.

“That’s weird,”said Mikey. “Gee couldn’t be back already?”

“It could be a delivery,” Bob said. “Maybe Ray ordered something for a spell.”

Curious, Mikey put the bass down and followed Dewees on the path to the main gates. Bob trailed afterwards, clearly trying not to act like a guard. The wrought iron gates were at least twelve foot high, with gargoyles fashioned like sentries on either pillar. Dewees pressed the buzzer built into one, which was covered with protective plastic so he didn’t have to touch iron.

“Way residence, can I help you?” he said.

  
  


There were some odd scuffling sounds from the speaker, and an exclamation that distinctly sounded like ‘No you’.

Then a voice said,

“Hey, is Mikey there?”

Mikey’s eyes widened. He knew that voice.

“Who is speaking?” said Dewees imperiously. 

More scuffling sounds.

“Uh, this is Pete. Pete Wentz? And my friends? We’re friends with Mikey? Kinda?”

“Oh, let them in!” Mikey said.

“Uhhh,” said Dewees. Bob said,

“I don’t think we should-”

“Oh come on, you guys, Gee isn’t even here! Technically that makes me in charge you know,” Mikey pointed out.

“Well yes but-” Bob said. Mikey knew what he meant. He wasn’t going to come out and say it, but the truth was, Mikey didn’t exactly _act_ like Gee’s second-in-command. Or like a Way at all, really. They all looked at each other. Then Mikey rolled his eyes and pressed the button to unlock the gates. Dewees fidgeted and looked nervous. There was a pause, then the pondorous iron gates creaked and started to inch outwards.

Pete, Patrick, Joe and Andy stood awkwardly on the driveway, looking like nothing so much as four kids summoned to the principal’s office. Mikey immediately felt unsettled, and his eyes went to Pete. His mind was radiating anxiety and confusion. Mikey hurriedly put his shields up, then lowered them just a tiny bit, curious. 

“Hey,” he said. “Come on in guys. Oh don’t worry about them, they’re more scared of you than you are of them,” he indicated Bob and Dewees, as all six of them looked nervously at each other.

“This place is huge,” Patrick said in a slightly awed voice, as they all crossed the threshold and stared around at the statues and garden trellises. “And, uh, beautiful, I mean.”

“If you’re into that sort of thing,” Joe muttered, eyes lingering on one of the weeping angel statues, which Mikey had to admit himself was sort of excessively creepy.

“My brother really goes for the gothic look,” Mikey shrugged. 

“Is your brother-?” Pete’s eyes widened.

“Oh, he’s not here,” Mikey waved a hand, gesturing them all to follow him back towards the house and up the porch steps. “And in any case he - well, he wouldn’t be _glad_ you’re here, but he’s far too polite to say anything to your faces. He’d just hover awkwardly and offer you tea and then yell at me after you were gone. Dewees, can you get some - uh, coffee? You guys drink coffee right? Do we have tea?” 

Dewees looked absolutely pained, clearly torn between disobeying Mikey and knowingly co-operating in something Gerard definitely wouldn’t countenance. Eventually he just groaned and scuttled off towards the kitchens. Mikey was tempted for half a second to bring them all into Gee’s office, purely to look cool, but his nerve failed him on that one. He brought them all into the parlour instead, where Frank was curled up in an upright chair, reading a thick book. When he looked up, his eyes widened.

“Pete, Patrick, Joe, Andy, this is Frank Iero. Frankie, this is Pete and everyone,” Mikey gestured coolly, hiding his grin, as Frank stared in fascination for a minute then blurted,

“Are you guys hunters?”

“Yeah,” said Andy, and Bob winced. “But we’re very selective ones.”

“See?” said Pete brightly and grinned, exposing his fangs. He was quite a good actor, Mikey thought - if he hadn’t been psychic, he’d have no idea Pete was practically vibrating with anxiety.

  
  


“So what brings you all here?” Mikey gestured for everybody to have a seat. Bob remained standing.

“Well in short,” said Pete, sitting down. “I want to be like you.”

“You want to join us?” Mikey blinked. 

“Nah,” Pete said. “No offense. I’m sure you’re great and all. But I just wanna learn how to not drink from humans.”

“Well, duh,” Frank wrinkled his nose. “Just - don’t drink from them.”

“But what about-...” Pete looked uncomfortable, and Mikey lowered his shields a little more.

“He means the cravings,” he said. “I mean, we have a formula. Obviously. But I don’t know if I can just - hand it over.”

“Please?” said Pete hopefully and Frank snorted laughter. “You guys are into not hurting people, right?”

“We’re into not getting _staked,”_ said Bob sharply.

“So why do you hunt?” Frank demanded.

“Well, to save people,” said Joe.

“I mean _you,”_ Frank said to Pete.

“Same,” Pete said.

“How long have you been a vampire?”

“You know what, I don’t see why we should answer all these questions if you’re not going to help him,” said Andy.

“I didn’t say we’re not going to help,” Mikey said, his shields still down a bit, “I just said I don’t think I can hand over the family formula to an outsider.”

Pete looked like he was going to say something, but at that moment, Dewees ran back into the room and slammed the door. He was carrying a tray with the coffee pitcher, but no cups, and he dropped it as soon as he got inside.

“What the shit are you doing James?” Frank said politely.

“So good news and bad news,” Dewees said. “The good news is, we have three kinds of tea. The bad news is, Gerard’s home.”


	6. Chapter 6

Joe didn’t quite know what he expected the Head of the Way Clan to be like, but it definitely wasn’t the dude in front of him. Gerard, as Mikey called him, wasn’t very tall and had terrible posture which made him appear both shorter and rather awkward. He had messy dark hair and bore a mild sibling resemblance to Mikey, though with a rounder face, and big, rather worried-looking hazel eyes. He was at least dressed in somewhat gothic style, in a long dark coat that looked hot for the weather. The woman at his side - his wife, Joe assumed - was rather more impressive, with blood-red lips and long, jet-black hair, but a twinkle of humour in her eye that made her less intimidating. She was wearing a short black dress and elegant heeled boots.

“Mikey?” Gerard said tightly, “Who are your guests?” He sounded pissed, and if Joe wasn't mistaken a little bit scared too. After the butler guy, the one Frank had called James, had stumbled into the room, they’d all frozen for a moment. In a split-second of insanity, Joe had considered diving under one of the couches, or maybe into a closet.

“Why is he back already?” Mikey yelled, and Dewees yelled,

“I DON’T KNOW!” Louder, so naturally all that noise plus the crash of the tray and coffeepot on the floor brought Gerard and his wife right to the parlour room.

“Oh, you know who they are,” Mikey rolled his eyes. 

“Andrew Hurley,” said Andy, and offered Gerard his hand. Gerard took and it shook as briefly as possible, practically dropping it after. 

“The hunter,” Gerard said.

“Among other things.”

Gerard made a visible effort to draw himself up. “I am Gerard Way, Head of the Way Clan and Guardian of the Family. This is my wife, Lindsey. What business have you in our home?”

“Woah, dude, chill, we’re just friends of Mikey,” Pete held his hands up and Gerard stared at him for a moment, then did a double take.

“You really _are_ a vampire,” he said.

“Sure am.”

Gerard got a weird expression on his face as he looked at Pete, almost pained, as though he would like to sit down for a minute. Then he shook his head.

“Well, anyway,” he said. “You need to understand we don’t normally entertain visitors. We prefer privacy.”

“Okay, this was a bad idea,” said Patrick and stood up. “Mikey, thanks for your help the other day. Come on guys, let’s get out of here. Sorry to have bothered you Mr. Way.”

Joe was inclined to agree. But then Mikey turned around and glared at his brother:

“You can’t let him walk out of here like that.” He was pointing at Pete.

“Mikey,” Gerard said.

“He’s right, Gerard,” said the woman, Lindsey. The look of humour was gone from her face, and she was frowning. “I know he isn’t one of us, but that - it isn’t right.”

Gerard looked torn. Then he said,

“Okay, family meeting, my office. Mikey, Frank - you come with me. Bob and Dewees, you stay here and keep an eye - and entertain our guests.”

Mikey rolled his eyes, but said,

“Sorry guys. This won’t take long. At least I hope it won’t,” and he, Gerard, Frank and Lindsey all left the room together.

“I’ll get you all that coffee,” said Dewees helpfully, which left the one called Bob to guard them - Joe didn’t have great experience being guarded by vampires, and this Bob kind of looked like he could snap Joe in half even as a human. He didn’t do anything threatening though, just stood near the door with a mild expression on his face.

  
  


“Sooo…what the heck was that about?” Joe asked the group at large.

“I think they’re reading me,” Pete looked troubled. “Either on purpose or just - naturally.”

“And I guess they don’t like what they see,” said Patrick.

“They didn’t feel angry though,” Pete offered. “If anything, they felt kind of confused and - I don’t know, even - concerned? I didn’t like it though, it was like being naked.”

“Why didn’t you stop them then?” Bob spoke.

“How would I do that?” Pete looked perplexed, and Bob looked kind of - horrified.

“By _shielding,_ ” he said. “Holy shit, my sire wasn’t father of the century, but he at least made sure I could shield properly. Where the hell is yours? _”_

“We’re not exactly on cosy terms,” Pete said dryly.

“That’s - you mean - are you telling me you don’t know how to shield?” Bob spluttered. “How are you not crazy?”

“I get by,” Pete said defensively, at the same time as Patrick said,

“We manage, thanks,” and Dewees returned with the coffee. They all sat around drinking gloomily.

“We shouldn’t have come here,” Pete said at last. “It was a dumb idea. I’m sorry guys, I shouldn’t have brought you. I just - I get sick of drinking from humans.”

“We all wanted to come,” said Andy. “And in any case, they’re not dangerous. I don’t think. Worst case scenario they kick us out and we wasted an afternoon.”

“Pete, if I got mad at you every time you got me into a dumb situation, our friendship wouldn’t have lasted past middle school.” Joe patted Pete’s leg reassuringly. 

“Are they actually reading your mind?” Patrick looked discomfited. “Shit, are they reading _our_ minds?”

“Gee wouldn’t do that,” said Dewees in a voice that maybe meant to be reassuring.

“Though a lot of vampires _would,_ if you’re just walking around with no shields like that,” said Bob sharply, then shook his head and muttered to himself like he couldn’t believe it.

“Yes alright I get it, I’m the world’s most defective vampire, thank you,” Pete rolled his eyes.

“What - hey, no way man! Kind of the opposite. We’re pretty much amazed you’re like. Sane.”

“Well sane might be pushing it,” Joe said, and Pete flipped him off. After several minutes, all the other vampires came back into the room and Gerard stood in front of the fireplace like he was getting ready to give a speech. Mikey looked quelled. Lindsey looked calm and enigmatic, and Frank looked entertained.

“Well,” Gerard cleared this throat. “We’ve thought about it, and decided that if you’d like us to help you develop some shield training, we’ll help you. I’m grateful to you for bringing my brother back safely the other night -”

To be honest, he mostly helped us -”

“But we can’t just hand over our family formula. We can at least get you some training.”

“What would you like in return?” asked Andy, not aggressively, just perceptively.

“We have a lot of books,” it was Lindsey who spoke now. “But we don’t have a lot of recent experience with other creatures - what we do have was mostly a hundred years ago. Some of our clan members are having trouble with faeries.”

They all stared at her for a long moment.

“You want to hunt with us?” Joe said finally.

“Oh we don’t hunt,” Geraed said quickly, with a sharp glance at Mikey. “Despite some of the odder ideas my brother has gotten lately.”

“But we _do_ have to do something about these faeries,” Lindsey said.

“Sooo, what, you want us to just like - talk to them?” Joe said sceptically. “Cos from what I’ve read about faeries, I don’t think that’s going to work.”

“We’re still going to try it,” Gerard said. 

“And we might not hunt, but we do defend ourselves,” Frank put in. “Right now there are more of them than there are of us, and we don’t exactly have a lot of friends ready to pitch in on a dangerous mission. We want you to help us even the numbers.”

Joe looked at Andy. Andy looked at Pete. Pete looked at Patrick. Patrick looked at Joe.

“That sounds fair,” Joe said at last.

It seemed that everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

“So now that that’s over,” Mikey sounded much brighter. “You guys wanna see the music rooms?”

  
  


*

  
  


“Why didn’t you tell me?” Patrick said to Pete. He was trying not to be confrontational. In truth, he felt pretty damn confrontational, but acting like it with Pete wouldn’t get him anywhere. Pete was sitting on the bunk in the warehouse practicing his bass - an activity Patrick would normally encourage and refrain from interrupting - but this was an unusual situation.

“Tell you what?” Pete made big innocent eyes.

“That you were….you know!” Patrick made a few gestures. He wanted to say ‘mentally suffering’ but he had a horrible feeling Pete might try to look deep and say something like ‘existence IS mentally suffering, Rick’ and then Patrick might accidentally murder him. “That you were struggling with the shields thing,” he said finally.

“Well I don’t know,” Pete said slowly and looked thoughtful. He put down the bass and plectrum. “I know it's hard when I like - sense things I don’t want to sense - and it's more intense around other vampires. I know the worst is when He tries to get in contact with me. But I’ve never been a vampire before, have I Rick? I didn’t know what it was supposed to be like.”

“You’ve just - you’ve just been assuming - this was how you’re meant to feel.” Patrick sat down on the bunk and lowered his face into his hands.

“Hey it's not that different,” Pete said pragmatically. “I’ve been crazy my whole life, remember. I thought this was just - a slightly different kind of crazy.”

Patrick stared at him. For some reason, all this was striking him as unspeakably sad. 

“It's not all bad,” Pete added. “Sometimes I sense nice things too. If people are happy, or excited, and they’re close to me, it sort of - I pick it up. It just gets a little bit - well, intense, sometimes.”

A thought hit Patrick suddenly, like a shock of cold water. “Is that why you won’t have sex with me? Are you worried it will like - explode your brain or something? Hell, maybe it will explode your brain, we don’t know!”

“No, no no no,” said Pete hurriedly. “Even if it would, Rick, it would be worth it. I would totally get my brain exploded for you.”

“How romantic.”

“But if I exploded _your_ brain, I’d never forgive myself. Maybe when Mikey teaches me-”

“Pete, please don’t turn Mikey Way into our sex guru. Please.”

“Baby, I AM a sex guru,” said Pete, moved his bass to the floor, and leaned in to start kissing the side of Patrick’s neck. Patrick got hard instantly. It was practically Pavolvian at this point. Then he got pissed with himself for his reaction. 

“Okay stop. Stop.” He pushed Pete off. “You know what? If screwing me is going to explode my tiny fragile human brain, maybe making out with me will do the same thing. Hell, maybe it's worse. Maybe vampires can literally kill people via sexual frustration.”

“Don’t be like that, Tricky-” Pete reached out for him as he stood up.

“Practice your bass Pete.”

  
  


*

  
  


“We’re gonna be on the radio!” Pete screamed, running into the living room part of the warehouse.

“Hoooly shit,” Joe dropped the blunt he was halfway through rolling and clutched at his chest. “Give me a heart attack why don’t you.”

“Don’t smoke so much, Trohman, it's making you paranoid.” Pete launched himself onto the couch. “Rock superstardom awaits!”

“What radio, what do you mean Pete?” Patrick asked.

“ONLY Chicago’s premier breakfast show on KWTS, Jake West and Natasha Lombardi.”

“Jake West?” Andy wrinkled his nose. “He’s a right wing douchebag, and she’s not much better. Also that show plays trash.”

“Oh don’t be such a snob,” Pete threw a crumpled-up ball of paper at him.

“They do play trash though,” said Patrick.

“And besides,” Andy raised his eyebrows at Pete. “He’s entirely anti-vampire. His grandfather was a leading opponent of the treaties at the Supreme Court.”

“That was his grandfather, not him.”

“Yeah but you know Chicago political families.”

“How did we get on this show, anyway?” Joe wanted to know.

“Through the magic,” Pete flexed his fingers, “Of the internet. Which reminds me, I need short bios from all of you for our MySpace page and can I please get some decent goddam profile pictures for the website? Patrick you look twelve in yours.”

“What the fu - how is my profile picture on our website, Pete?”

“Oh I just used an old yearbook photo of yours.”

“YOU WHAAAT?!?”

“All publicity is good publicity, right?” Joe shrugged. Maybe it was the joint he’d finished before Pete interrupted his session, but it sounded pretty sweet to him.

“Exactly,” Pete made finger-guns at him. “Which reminds me, the interview starts at seven tomorrow, so you’d better stop smoking now or you’ll sleep through your alarm.”

“Seven in the MORNING?”

“Well duh, Joe, it's a breakfast show. Oh come ON, you guys! Do you wanna be playing in basement shitholes forever, or do you wanna be the new Green Day?”

“I don’t remember saying I wanted to be in Green Day,” said Andy, but he didn’t look mad about it.

“So I’ll wake you all up at like five tomorrow,” Pete said.

“Five….five is not a time for getting up, Pete. Five is a time for going to or being asleep,” said Joe, but it was just for form’s sake really. Now that he was starting to think about it, he couldn’t help being a little bit excited. Maybe it wasn’t very punk rock, but to be honest, Joe _didn’t_ want to be playing in basement shitholes forever. If that meant playing the game a little bit, so be it.

Pete might have been somewhat exaggerating when he called KWTS the ‘premier’ breakfast show in Chicago, but the tower block building they pulled up to at 6.35 the next morning was pretty decent-looking. It was weird being out and about so early, with the sky still dark, and only a handful of business guys clutching coffee cups and 24-hour store workers around. Patrick pressed the buzzer, and Joe felt sudden regret that he hadn’t taken a few more minutes to at least try and tame his hair. A young-looking intern recieved them: she was clutching a clipboard like her life depended on it, and seemed terribly over-excited for this time of the morning. Joe tried to keep up with her whirlwind of instructions as they walked.

“I just wanted to say,” she paused and leaned in, after directing them to enter the door with the red ‘ON AIR’ light above it: “I’m a big fan.” She was very close to Pete, almost touching his arm, then she turned red and backed off abruptly.

“Is this gonna happen everywhere we go now?” Patrick asked pissily, but then Andy shushed him, because they weren’t supposed to talk inside the studio until the host cued them. 

“And here they are now, come in guys, have a seat,” said Jake West. He was muscled, blonde guy in his thirties who looked like he’d been a true jock in college and maybe hadn’t quite left the identity behind. His co-host, Natasha Lombardi Joe presumed, was a woman of a similar age who was dressed in a sharp pantsuit, dark lipstick and somewhat terrifying spike heels. Joe felt scruffy just being in her presence. They all perched a bit awkwardly on the studio stools, and the host said, “Why don’t you introduce yourselves to the listeners?”

“Uh well, I’m Patrick, I sing and play rhythm guitar.”

“I’m JOE TROHMAN and I’m the lead guitarist.”

“I’m Pete, I write lyrics and play bass kinda.”

“I’m Andy, I play drums.”

“And you are?” Natasha raised an eyebrow and made a circular motion to encompass all of them.

“Oh! Uh we’re Fall Out Boy, sorry.” Patrick went red. Pete laughed.

“So you guys have been getting some local hype lately, we’ll play one of your songs in a few minutes. How would you describe your sound, guys?” 

Pete lit up. Joe had to hand it to him, he was good. Put him on the spot and he’d usually perform in a talking situation. Jake West asked them a couple of questions about their recent shows, Joe put his thoughts in and even Patrick loosened up enough to talk. Andy hadn’t said anything since his name at the start.

“So when are you going to make the big leagues guys, get off that little indie label? Then we can say it all started here,” Jake West grinned unpleasantly. Andy frowned.

“Well you know, Fuelled By Ramen are kind of our friends,” said Pete carefully. “And they’ve been really good to us. But we definitely want to get our stuff out there and be heard by as many people as possible. So we’ll see?”

“That’s interesting,” said Jake West, “Considering your position.”

“I’m sorry, what?” said Andy.

“How do you think people will react to you playing with a vampire?”

Pete blinked and coughed a bit. For possibly the first time since Joe had known him, he actually looked lost for words for a second. He recovered: ‘Uh. Well, uh. Humans and vampires have been living peacefully together for a long time now, apart from that business with some of the Dandies a few years ago.”

“Yeah I heard you were involved with that,” said Natasha.

“Excuse me? What the hell do mean ‘involved?’” Andy demanded.

“Woah, guys this is a morning show, no cursing,” Jake chuckled fakely. “But you’ve got to admit it's pretty unusual. Most people aren’t exactly going to be tripping over themselves to see a band with a fanged frontman. Can’t see many parents of teens being very happy about that.”

“Oh I don’t know,” said Pete lightly. “It seems to be going alright.”

“Sure, sure. Anyway, we’re going to play some of your music now. This is from the demo CD Evening Out With Your Girlfriend-”

“It’s called Fall Out Boy’s Evening Out With Your Girlfriend, that’s the joke-” said Pete.

“-It’s called 'Calm Before the Storm', here it is.” He hit a button. The microphone lights went off and they all removed their headphones.

“That was bullshit!” Andy said, and Patrick said,

“Hey man, that wasn’t cool. We didn’t agree to answer questions about-”

“Guys, it's fine, forget it,” Pete looked glum. 

“Well it's kind of the elephant in the room guys,” Jake West raised his eyebrows. “People are gonna want to know.”

“No!” said Andy. “You did that on purpose! You made him walk into that.”

Natasha made a show of looking at the clock and said, “Well, thanks for your time boys, but we’ll have to move it along now, our next guests will be due any minute.”

“No problem,” said Joe reflexively, then cringed at himself. They all filed out quietly, and the eager intern was waiting.


	7. Chapter 7

“So um, how do we start this whole Jedi training shit?” Pete actually looked more interested in the grand piano Gerard had recently gotten tuned, and started trying to pick out a melody with a couple of fingers. They were back in the parlour, Mikey lounging on one of the couches and Ray sitting properly near the coffee table - Mikey had never exactly trained anyone in psychic competency before, but he figured today they would just get a better feel for whatever was going on with Pete, and seeing as he knew him best it was probably better if they started together. However, Ray was the best at explaining things, and also had rather more knowledge of vampire lore than Mikey did.

“It's not Jedi training,” Mikey tried to redirect Pete. “But I guess that’s not a bad metaphor.”

“Should we like, sit cross legged on the floor and stare at each other intensively?”

“Well,” Mikey was taken aback. “We _could,_ I suppose. Though I’m not sure why we’d want to.”

“It always seems to help on TV,” Pete explained, but he sat down normally in one of the chairs. The first time Mikey had met Pete, he’d sensed there was something off about him, but when he’d turned up at the mansion yesterday it had been glaringly obvious. Just being around him had been uncomfortable. Today, it wasn’t quite so bad but still very clear he had only the faintest ability to shield and didn’t even seem to know when he was doing it. 

“So - this is a sensitive topic,” said Ray slowly. “But um - how did you get turned? I’m guessing you haven’t been a vampire very long.”

“Nearly two years,” said Pete. “And I got turned by William Beckett.”

Mikey stared at him. Without thinking he scanned Pete’s mind for deception, but he felt none. 

“William Beckett turned you?” he said.

“Yeah,” said Pete.

“But then….you aren’t a Dandy...how did you get away from him?”

“My friends helped me out.”

Ray blinked. “You have vampire friends?”

Pete grinned winningly. “Not apart from you guys. Nah, my human friends helped me get out after that.”

Mikey drew a deep breath. If his heart could be pounding right then it undoubtedly would be. Maybe Gee was right - however charming Pete Wentz was - and he was _very_ charming - they really didn’t know him at all. “Pete did you - did you _kill_ William Beckett?”

“No.” 

Mikey breathed out.

“But I’m going to,” said Pete.

“Ooookay. Uh. We’ll come back to that,” said Mikey slowly. “Well, as you’ve gathered, vampires are naturally empathic. We pick up on strong feelings and emotions from the people around us, and we can read thoughts.”

“What? I can’t read thoughts!”

“It's not instinctive,” Ray explained. “Not like the empathic stuff. But you can learn to do it.”

“Awesome!” said Pete, but then he frowned. “Wait a minute though. I don’t know if I want to always know what people are thinking. What if they’re thinking I’m a piece of shit? I don’t need that kind of negativity!”

“Well, exactly,” said Ray. “No-one just goes around reading minds all the time - I don’t even know if that’s possible, actually, but in any case you’d go crazy. We can shield our minds from outside influence, including feelings and emotions - that’s why we're kind of surprised you’ve just been walking around without knowing this stuff, though I think you’ve been doing it sometimes without realizing. Those shields can be broken down by a stronger vampire and some other psychic creatures, which is why it's important to work on them. Like - you know - exercise.”

“So - how do we do that?” Pete sat up a little straighter, the picture of an attentive student. 

“Gosh, it's so hard to put into words,” Mikey struggled. 

“It’s incredibly unusual for a fledgling to be immediately separated from their sire, and to have zero training,” Ray said. “I looked through a bunch of the histories last night, and I only found two other cases.”

“What did they do?” Pete asked.

“They uh.” Ray cleared his throat. “They died. Sorry.”

“Though I guess if it was going to happen with anyone, it would be Beckett,” Mikey said, as always slightly revolted by the thought of the sadistic Dandy.

“Loose canon,” Ray added. “Never does things by the book.”

“Ray likes the book,” said Mikey.

“There’s a book?” said Pete.

“There are several books,” Ray acknowledged. “Hundreds, in fact. I’m sort of the archivist around here. Even so, it's pretty much impossible to explain developing shields in words. If you’re willing, I think the best idea is for you to let one of us take a look.”

“Look?” Pete shifted uneasily. “Like - _inside_ me?”

“Inside your mind. It's not like surgery or something, we wouldn’t even have to touch you.”

“Mikey,” said Pete at last.

“I’d have suggested him anyway,” said Ray. “Born-fanged usually have the edge on turned vampires when it comes to the psychic stuff.”

“Okay so,” Pete said. “What do I do? Should I close my eyes?”

“You don’t have to do anything. Just try to relax. You can close your eyes if it will help.”

Pete did so, and Mikey reached out cautiously towards the edges of his psyche. Minds always appeared to him as some kind of location - he didn’t know if he’d been born like that, or the way grandmother had trained them had somehow encouraged it. He tried to recall now the way it had felt when she’d probed their minds - not forcefully or aggressively, but with confidence, like she knew exactly what she was doing and there was no need to be worried. Most vampires’ minds were guarded by walls, doors or some other form of solid obstruction as the representation of their shields. Mikey was always aware that he wasn’t looking at a physical thing, that some part of his mind was just presenting mental phenomena as physical objects - rather like when you were dreaming, but knew you were having a dream. Pete’s were more like curtains, quite solid in some places but in others frayed through almost entirely. Large parts were just - absent, allowing Mikey to see right through, and he felt oddly embarrassed. Hesitantly, he pulled one frayed curtain aside and stepped through into the space beyond.

Pete’s mind was - startling, to say the least.

It was more like a landscape than like a building - open and sprawling in every direction - bursting with colour and light, sparkling frantically in swirls, in some places - not so much an absence of color as - what did Milton say? _Darkness visible._ If this were a physical place, and Mikey were physically seeing - that would be the best way he could describe it. The ground was like sand - constantly shifting, sometimes appearing stable but disappearing once he approached it. Usually, when Mikey saw other vampires’ avatars in their own minds, they appeared much as they did in the physical world, with maybe some minor differences that could be accounted for varying self-perception. Pete’s avatar seemed almost as translucent as his shields did, fading in and out in places, wavering like a mirage in the desert.

 _This is my mind?_ Pete asked, looking around as though he was seeing the landscape for the first time.

 _It's a representation of it,_ Mikey told him.

 _How are you talking to me right now?_ Pete asked.

 _I’m projecting,_ Mikey told him. _So are you._

Pete looked shocked, and his avatar flickered in and out. _So...what do we do here?_ He asked.

 _Come with me,_ Mikey gestured, surprised to see that his own avatar wavered in Pete’s mind-space. He led him back towards the frayed threads of material. _These are your shields, what there is of them. You need to make them much stronger, but also flexible. They have to be able to open and close, in degrees, and you have to learn to control them._

 _But - how?_ Pete looked around the landscape. 

That’s up to you. It's your mind. But right now they’re so light and fragile I just walked right through. I’m going to back out now, then I’ll try to come in again. Try to stop me. 

Mikey focused and retreated behind the curtains. This time, when he tried to push through, they appeared just a bit solider: fewer gaping holes, at least. It was still ridiculously easy for him to brush them aside and get in, and when he did, Pete looked surprised.

 _I felt that,_ he projected. _I mean I felt what I did to them._

 _That’s great_ , Mikey encouraged him. 

It didn’t stop you though.

_Well, no, but it was only your first try. We’re going to stop now._

_Already?_

_It's not good for you to stay here too long when you’re not used to it. You can get lost here, you know._

_Yeah I bet I can._ There was something dry in that, something a little bitter maybe, that Mikey couldn't put his finger on. Mikey blinked and was back in his own body. Outside, it was full night. Pete retained the fixed look of someone under a trance for a few seconds longer, then he blinked too.

“Woah,” he said, glancing towards the windows. “How long was that?”

“About an hour,” Ray told him.

“What? It felt like minutes!”

“I told you you can get lost in there,” Mikey said.

“Huh,” Pete looked disconcerted. “Well uh, thanks,” he cleared his throat.

“We can try it again when you’re ready,” Mikey said. “But now you know how to access your shields you can work on it on your own.”

“I know how to access them?”

“Try it.”

Pete paused for a moment, then got the blank look on his face of a vampire who’d retreated to their own mind. 

“Should we pull him out?” Ray said.

“Give him a minute,” said Mikey. “Let him try by himself first.”

“Holy shit, I can do it!” exclaimed Pete.

“Awesome,” said Mikey. “You probably shouldn't try it when you’re alone, for now. You know, just in case you get stuck in there.”

“Yeah trust me, not gonna risk that,” said Pete. “Sounds like my worst nightmare.”

“Huh?” said Ray.

“Never mind,” said Pete. “So I should probably get going - want to come to our show tomorrow night?”

“I can’t,” said Mikey unhappily. “I’m kind of - grounded.”

“Grounded?” said Pete. “Dude aren't you like two hundred years old?”

“I’m a hundred and forty-five,” said Mikey. “But that’s not the point. It's kind of a vampire thing, dude. My brother is Head of the Clan so really he’s - not in charge of me, exactly, it's like he - has responsibility. For - you know, the whole family. And I did kind of sneak out to come to your show. I probably shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why does he care if you go to shows?” Pete said blankly.

“Because it's dangerous,” said Ray. “Most humans want to kill vampires, and there are plenty of violent vampires out there too.”

“Sooo...what you just stay inside your entire lives? That doesn’t exactly seem like a good solution.”

“I know right!” exclaimed Mikey, at the same time as Ray said,

“We don’t stay inside our entire lives. We just keep to ourselves. Some people prefer it that way.”

“I guess,” said Pete doubtfully. “But you said you were in a band right? If you ever do want to come jam with us, you’re more than welcome.”

Mikey felt a great sense of longing for the sensation of playing with other people again, the sense of harmonizing and being in rhythm, the kind of automatic bonding you got from making music together.

“Maybe sometime,” he said at last. “When my brother’s less pissed with me. If that ever happens.”

“Oh you know it will,” said Ray. “He’s not even pissed with you now, really. He’s just worried.”

“But we’re all still going on this faerie thing tomorrow right?” Pete said. “I’m pretty sure we need Mikey for that. He’s pretty awesome at hunting creatures, no offence, I’m sure you’re great too.”

“I’m not,” said Ray. “But yeah, we need Mikey. We need as many people as possible, to be honest with you.” 

“It’ll be fine,” Pete said, and though Mikey knew perfectly well he had absolutely no way to justify that sentiment, he appreciated it all the same.

*

“Fucking faeries, man,” Joe said, closing the browser and shaking his head. “Who would have thought?”

The problem with internet research, he often reflected, is what while it was more up to date and much more accessible than the books, mingled in with a great deal of useful information was a great deal of - to be frank - bullshit. Sometimes the bullshit was obvious - poorly-made personal pages that screamed either ‘edgy fourteen-year-old Satan worshipper’ or ‘tin-foil hat level conspiracy theorist’ (Joe’s particular favorite of that type had been a site describing the time the author got kidnapped by Bigfoot, who was guarding alien technology in a cave in the Rocky Mountains as part of a deal with the government). But overall, it seemed the consensus on faeries was that they were far more sinister beings than Joe would have imagined: small, but fast, cunning and powerful. Their presence on earth had been documented for centuries, first in the British Isles and then later, America….there was plenty of information on their habits, tactics and vulnerabilities, but what nobody seemed to understand was their motivations. What did they want? They were constantly messing with humans and other species, up to and including abducting human children, for no other reason than it seemed to amuse them. Perhaps that was literally the answer, though it would seem to place them at greater risk for an unnecessary benefit: they lived in forests and woody mountains, ate off the land, and wouldn’t seem to have any real need to interact with humans at the risk of being hunted. Most of the books said you could kill them with iron, if you had to: the thing they really feared, though, was fire. Fire burned trees, and trees, some theorized, were the source of the faeries’ magic. If it wasn’t for the unnecessary violence and love of trickery, Joe thought, they’d actually be quite cool creatures.

Gerard hadn’t specified what the ‘trouble’ was that the faeries were causing, but when they all met at the Way mansion just after sunset that evening, he was much more forthcoming.

“Okay so,” he said, pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace in the parlour. If you tied this guy’s hands behind his back, Joe thought, he literally wouldn't be able to talk. “Hopefully, you won’t have to do anything dangerous. Anything violent, I mean. Just walking into faerie territory is dangerous in itself I guess - the main thing is, talk as little as possible. Whenever a faerie asks you a question, it's trying to trick you into something.”

“Well that sounds kinda racist,” said Pete. “Speciesist. Whatever.”

“Have you ever met a faerie?” Gerard asked him.

“No,” Pete admitted.

“Then trust me.”

Pete made the face that meant he was suppressing rolling his eyes.

  
  


“So basically, all the faerie clans in America are pretty connected,” Gerard said. “But the Jersey ones seem to have some kind of grudge against the Way clan. So we head out to Starved Rock tonight - there’s a pretty substantial group of the fae living in the state park - and try and find out what their cousins want and what it will take for them to stop it.”

“Faeries live right in the state park?” Patrick said. “So close to humans?”

“Everywhere is close to humans nowadays,” Gerard pointed out. “They’re very good at hiding when they don’t want to be found.”

“So what makes you think they’ll take to us?” said Andy.

“We have matches,” Lindsey said, and held up a box.

“Wait, wait,” said Joe. “I don’t think any of us want to die in a forest fire. Humans burn. Do vampires burn?”

“Eventually,” said Lindsey. “It would take a while. But in any case, we’re not planning on actually using the matches. It's a bluff, you know. A threat to draw them out.”

“Normally we’re not like this,” Gerard said, almost apologetically: “Normally we’d stay out of the whole situation. But you know, family is family.”

“It must be a pretty big responsibility, being Clan Head and all,” said Pete. No-one ever accused him of social propriety, Joe thought. But instead of being offended at his forwardness, Gerard just said,

“Yeah it is,” and then dusk was falling, so they all piled into their various cars and made the hour drive out to the park.

Starved Rock State Park was a 2.5-thousand acre range of forest and hiking trails, according to the large signs with maps set out in the parking lot. They advertised sandstone formations, waterfalls, hiking trails of various difficulty ratings, and a family BBQ/picnic day dated for three days prior. Several lodges and shelters for visitors were highlighted on the maps. Joe made a particular note to watch out for the canyons in the darkness - it would be a sad end to his hunting career, he thought, were he to trip over his own shoelaces and die at the bottom of a cliff. It was going on ten at night, and the woods were quiet from the treeline, though Joe guessed if Starved Rock was a popular campsite they’d also have to be on their guard for humans. 

“Was anybody here ever a boy scout?” Patrick asked half-jokingly.

“The scouts don’t really approve of stoner kids,” said Joe.

“I was more of a skater,” said Pete.

“You don’t know how to skate,” said Andy.

“It’s a culture, not a sport,” Pete retorted.

“I was a boy scout,” said the vampire called Frank.

“You were?” Gerard asked him.

“Sure. For like a year, till they kicked me out.”

“For what?”

“Starting fires,” said Frank, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “Which is dumb because they’re the ones who taught us how to start fires in the first place.”

“Well let’s all hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Lindsey, and they headed into the woods.


	8. Chapter 8

To say that Patrick wasn’t the outdoorsy type would be putting it mildly. He’d been camping precisely twice that he could remember, and that was because his parents insisted it would be good for him to partake in more organized youth activities. Giving the nightmarish choice between football and camping, he’d gone for the latter, estimating his chances of survival around 50%, and thus 50% higher than they would be in a football game. The first time, he’d gotten poison ivy, and the second time two of the older boys sabotaged his tent poles, and the whole stupid thing had collapsed on top of him in the middle of the night. He’d also gotten a huge blister from trying to use a fishing rod that made it difficult to play guitar for almost a whole week. All in all, he’d considered the whole thing an enraging waste of time and energy in this day and age, and saw no reason to ever to return to a wooded area, unless perhaps in a fully equipped campervan with electric lights, heat and a well-stocked refrigerator. Still, the last two years had been more full of surprises than any period of Patrick’s life to date, so it wasn’t the strangest thing he could have imagined to find himself trudging through the dense undergrowth at eleven on a Wednesday night, crossbow over one shoulder and a bag containing some steel-tipped bolts on the other. He was pretty nervous about openly carrying a weapon somewhere regular humans - such as park rangers, or hey, off-duty cops - could theoretically appear, but Gerard had insisted. In any case they were far from the beaten paths now, and the woods were almost pitch-black. The vampires seemed to have no trouble seeing in the dark, but any human out wandering at this hour must be either lost or crazy. (The irony of that thought wasn’t lost on Patrick, but he’d figured he was probably crazy for a while now, between his voluntarily going on these suicide missions and falling in love with Pete). Speaking of Pete - Patrick kept sneaking these little glances across at him, trying to gauge the amount of time he spent close to Mikey, even though they were all being quiet for stealth reasons. It was difficult because firstly, it was embarrassing, and Patrick didn’t want anybody to notice him doing it, and secondly Patrick had poor enough eyesight in broad daylight, never mind in a dark forest. ‘You’re insane,’ he told himself: ‘This is ridiculous’. But his mind kept flashing back to that last fight he’d had with Pete, the one they hadn’t made up from but simply stopped talking about it. Patrick bet Mikey didn’t get into ridiculous fights like that. Mikey was far too cool.

The Way clan vampires all seemed to have a clear idea of where they were going. At least Gerard and Lindsey did, and they were in front. They’d been walking for just over an hour Patrick’s watch when Gerard stopped abruptly.

“This is it,” he said.

“This is what?” asked Joe.

“Where the faeries are,” said Pete, with an odd look on his face.

“You can feel them right?” Mikey looked pleased. Pete stared back at him and blinked in surprise.

“I can!” he said.

“Kinda cool, huh?” Mikey grinned.

“I don’t know,” said Pete. “They feel so strange.”

“Use your shields,” Mikey encouraged him. Patrick tried to stop listening to them. He looked around, and realized that what he’d first taken to be just a small clearing in the trees was peculiarly circular, almost like someone had cut back the branches to form the shape. A ring of blue flowers, some kind Patrick had never seen before, had sprung up at the roots of the trees around the clearing. It struck him as odd he could make out their color in the dark night. Then realized, and a swift line of goosebumps ran down his spine: the flowers were glowing, very subtly, emitting a soft blue-white light like tiny moons. 

“Do you see that?!” he grabbed Joe’s arm. Joe nodded, eyes wide. Considering the kind of bloody messes they’d spent the past two years fighting through, one wouldn’t expect a ring of flowers to be so scary, but Patrick was overcome with a sinister feeling, like the temperature had just dropped ten degrees in a couple of seconds. He could have sworn he heard laughter - high pitched and mocking - it seemed to travel from right to left, right behind him between the trees, but when he turned around there was nothing there.

“I’m going to summon them,” Gerard said. “Hold on to your weapons but don’t move. Don’t talk unless they talk to you. Don’t ignore them, but say as little as possible. And whatever you do: don’t accept any gifts from them.”

“Faeries of Starving Rock!” said Gerard. He was standing upright in the middle of the clearing, trying to look bold, but Patrick could see the nervousness in his face: “In the name of the Way Clan, I, Gerard Way, demand to speak with your leader.”

There was a pause, then that mocking laughter again, rippling along the treeline like a rush of wind. The flowers seemed to lean their heads towards the sound, all swaying together. “We are here in peace,” Gerard said. “But we must demand to speak with you.”

“PEACE?” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, like a rushing wind or a sea storm. Neither old nor young. Neither deep nor high. It was everything, layered on top of itself: a palimpsest. “You come bearing iron weapons to our forest, and you speak of PEACE?”

“We have no wish to fight with you,” Gerard said. “But we must insist you come out and speak with us.”

The word ‘insist’ echoed around the clearing, mocking, laughing.

“You insist, do you?” said the Voice.

“Yes,” said Gerard, firstly, and then Frank held up a match towards the largest tree in the clearing, and Patrick could have sworn he heard a collective intake of breath. It wasn’t quite right to say that the fae materialized in the clearing. It was just - one minute they weren’t there, to Patrick’s eyes, and then suddenly they were. He had the creeping sensation they’d probably been there the whole time, and were just now choosing to make themselves visible. Or make _something_ visible at least. He didn’t know how, but he had the distinct impression that what he was looking at wasn’t quite real: not quite a mask, not quite a mirage, but he had no doubt that the creatures in front of him were controlling the way they presented themselves to his eyes. At first he though there were two of them - then five - then, with a start, he realized there were glowing eyes in the trees all around them. No wonder the Ways had wanted to appear in some number.

The two faeries in the centre of the clearing appeared to be male and female - sort of. They were both fairly androgynous, to be honest, appearing tall and thin with almost translucent skin, large pale eyes, and the same ivy wreaths in their long hair. They would be almost angelic: expect that when they spoke, their mouths were filled with long, sharp teeth, and the look in their eyes was - if not malevolent - at least not exactly friendly. Frank lowered the match.

“Gerard Way,” said one of the first two, the one that looked slightly more female. “They say many things about you in faerie, but we had not heard you were a fool. You come here, to our home, bringing weapons of war? And your people into our Circle? Do you truly believe this could end well for you?”

“I’m here in defense of my family,” Gerard said, “As is my responsibility and my right. Your kindred have made several aggressive attempts against them, poaching on the forest area that is assigned to them by treaty between our people, and even wounding one of my cousins.”

“He was probably in the way,” said the second faerie. The rest of them laughed that weird laughter.

“We demand to know the meaning of these actions,” Gerard said.

“Oh you demand?” said the first faerie. “I’d have thought you knew rather better than to make demands of the fae. When has that ever turned out well for vampires? Or humans?” And he looked right at Patrick. Patrick shuddered viscerally - it almost reminded him of Beckett, that weird way of looking right through you.

“Well, as it happens, we have spoken to our cousins recently.” This time Patrick wasn’t even sure who spoke. Maybe all of them. “Your people have something which belongs to us. We are not finding co-operation in returning our just property, thus we have had to resort to unconventional methods.

“Oh not this again,” said Lindsey crossly. Apparently the faeries didn’t scare her, which was more than Patrick could say for himself. “Is this about the spell book?”

“You say that so casually,” one of the faeries said. “As though it were not one of the most important documents, irreplaceable, and sacred to our people.”

“And you never thought to, like, make a copy or something?” Frank said. Gerard glared at him.

“The book came into our family as part of an exchange,” Lindsay said. “It was perfectly fair. I thought faeries were bound to their words?”

“We were tricked,” hissed one of the faeries. “You imagine you can use our honor against us?”

“I would think you’d have to have some honor first,” said Frank, and Patrick winced, expecting some kind of violent retaliation - but the faeries were whispering to each other, that strange rushing water sound rippling through all the trees.

“It _is_ true,” drawled one of those who seemed to be in charge, “That we do not go back on our word. But since your people obtained the book by deceptive means, our law states that you must give us something in return.”

“That is not our law,” said Gerard.

“But it is the law of our forest, and you have entered our forest willingly.” 

With those words, the trees all around the circle seemed to lean in, darker than the darkness of the sky. Their branches seemed to resemble hands that reached towards them, tipped with long, spiked claws. 

“If I were to agree to give you something,” Gerard said carefully. “What would you ask for?”

As one, all the eyes in the woods turned towards their group, and focused. They were staring, Patrick realized with a sinking feeling, directly at Pete.

“Give us the fledgling Beckett made,” said the first faerie.

“No!” said Patrick and Mikey simultaneously, at the same time as Lindsey said,

“Why?”

And Gerard said,

“He is not mine to give. He is a person, not a piece of property.”

 _“Why?”_ said the second faerie. “Why, he’s the talk of the supernatural world. A fledgling, loose, created by the most powerful vampire to ever live, that survived an initial severance with it's maker? Who knows what he could become.”

“The most powerful vampire to ever live got his ass kicked by his old boss, or hadn’t you heard?” Joe said. 

“And Saporta was stupid enough not to kill him when he had the chance,” said the faerie. “That in itself proves he’s weaker. It's only a matter of time before he’s displaced or killed.”

“What exactly do you want to do with me?” Pete asked them.

“Pete!” Patrick reprimanded him.

“I’m just asking!” Pete said, like Gerard hadn’t specifically warned them about talking too much.

 _“To_ you?” said the faerie slyly. “Oh, we wouldn’t do anything _to_ you. We might all very usefully do some things together. You are after all a remarkable creature.”

“What kind of things?”

“Pete stop asking questions!” Gerard hissed.

“You should be honored, fledgling,” the faerie said. “Our Queen has an expressed an interest in you. For her to extend her favour to anyone outside the faerie race is - unusual, to say the least.”

Gerard drew in a quick breath. “That’s enough,” he said sharply. “Pete does not belong to the Way clan, and he has nothing to do with this - all this business. Your quarrel is with my family.”

“Then why did you bring him here?” snapped the second faerie, her (its?) eyes flashing with anger.

“He’s - a friend,” said Gerard.

“How about if I come meet your Queen, but don’t agree to like - become her property or some shit. Is that good enough?”

“Pete no!” said Mikey. “It’s a trap.”

“They’re bound by their word,” Pete said: “I read the book.” Then he turned to the fae and said, “I am unambiguously not agreeing to become your property, subject, ally or any other relation of yourselves, your Queen, your kin or any being, past present or future being belonging or connected to the realm of Faerie, now or in perpetuity.” (Now Patrick remembered why they made Pete read all the contracts. His dad was literally a lawyer). “However, if you and all of the fae will promise to cease and desist from harrassing any members of the Way clan and their associates, I will agree to meet with your Queen and discuss how we might be of benefit to each other.” Gerard had a pained look on his face. But it seemed there was nothing further he could say, now that Pete had laid the terms out. The faeries turned and whispered amongst themselves for a moment. Then the one that seemed to lead them turned back to the group.

“We agree,” said the faerie. “You will return here at the full moon at midnight. Bring no other vampires.”

* 

“What were you thinking?” Patrick yelled at Pete, as soon as they were back in the truck. Joe and Andy were in the front seats, and having made their displeasure with Pete’s actions pretty clear, were ignoring Pete and Patrick while they argued.

“Rick, chill, I didn’t promise them anything,” Pete said. “I’ve read up on these guys, okay? I’m pretty sure I can handle them. You just have to watch what you say, and like, not accept any food or drink or gifts.”

“Yes, Pete, because you are an absolute master of watching what you say. Your reputation for complete discretion is legendary.”

“Ugh, you don't have to be such a little bitch about it,” Pete made a face and dropped his head back against the seat. It will be fine.”

“But why did you do it?” Patrick exclaimed. _To impress Mikey_ , his brain whispered. Could it be? _To impress Mikey’s brother and be more accepted by his family._ If that was his plan, Patrick wasn’t sure if it worked or not:

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Gerard had told him.

“Not that we don’t appreciate the thought,” Lindsey said.

“We do appreciate it,” said Mikey.

“We do. But the Queen of Faerie is incredibly dangerous,” Gerard fretted. “I shouldn't have let you, it's my responsibility to-”

“You couldn’t exactly stop me,” Pete pointed out. “And you’re not responsible for _me,_ Gerard. And look on the bright side. The faeries promised never to bother you or your family again, and all I have to do is meet this lady. I didn’t promise her anything.”

“I know,” Gerard said. “And we are grateful. But she has ways of twisting things.”

“We can help you prepare,” Lindsey said.

“To an extent,” Gerard had said.

“Well, look,” Pete said pragmatically to Patrick now: “These faeries are supposedly super powerful, and they don't seem exactly friendly towards Beckett. They were excited because I’d gotten away from him, right? Maybe this is my shot.”

“Let me get this straight,” Patrick stared at him for a long moment. “You’re imagining that you can enlist the faeries in helping you to kill William Beckett, despite the fact you’ve been told several times that they are absolutely, under no circumstances, to be trusted?”

“I don’t have to trust them,” Pete pointed out. “They just have to trust _me._ ”

“Oh my God,” Patrick covered his face with his hands for a moment. “Oh my actual God. What. What is wrong with you? Why do you keep doing these things, Pete? Haven’t you gotten it through your head by now that you are not invincible?”

“I’m a lot more invincible now than I was previously,” Pete said. “Besides, you don’t have to come.” He turned away and looked out of the window.

“Oh for the love of - of course I’m coming with you,” Patrick snapped, just as Andy and Joe from the front seats said something similar - apparently they’d been listening in the whole time after all.

“Man, remember when we were just gonna hunt vamps and be in a punk band?” said Joe. “Life was so simple in those days.”

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

Gerard had finally appeared in the parlour, having seemed to delay in getting ready for as long as possible. He was dressed similarly to how he always did - in a long black coat, boots, a cravat, and with very little effort to tame his hair. In short, he’d made absolutely no attempt to disguise the fact that he was Gerard Way, which Mikey thought was a bit strange, given his total reluctance to emerge into the city.

“How do I look?” he asked awkwardly.

“Vampiric,” said Frank. “Are you sure that’s what you’re going for?”

“Well, I _am_ a vampire,” Gerard said crossly.

“So am I,” Mikey pointed out: he was wearing blue jeans and a green t-shirt, a nondescript blue jacket and a pair of Vans.

“I don’t know what else to put on,” Gerard complained. Frank and Mikey looked at each other. Ray was waiting for Gerard too, seeing as he was going along as the person who knew most about faeries, but he made no move to join in the conspiracy.

“Oh no,” Gerard said, holding his hands out. “No no no, you are not dressing me.”

“Gee,” said Mikey reasonably. “You’re the one who doesn’t want to draw attention to us.”

Gerard looked absolutely pained.

“Think of it as a costume,” said Frank diplomatically.

Gerard really didn’t have any clothes that would allow him to blend in in daylight, so Mikey and Frank went around the mansion gathering bits and pieces from various people’s wardrobes, resulting in a selection of pieces that didn’t perfectly fit, but at least sort of went together: a pair of dark jeans that belonged to Ray, an oversized hoodie of Frank’s, and an old hat of Bob’s that disguised his distinctive hair. They let him keep the boots.

“I don’t know what I look like,” Gerard complained to the mirror.

“That’s the idea,” Mikey approved.

“I’m uncomfortable,” said Gerard.

“You’re about to get a lot more uncomfortable,” Mikey said, and took his arm. They all headed out of the mansion and down to the garden gates. Gerard and Ray squinted in the light. After Mikey, Frank was probably the most prone to go out in the daytime, but the other two tended to stay nocturnal as much as possible. They’d prepared, of course, but the sun was still unpleasant to them.

“You never miss it?” Frank said to Ray, glancing briefly up at the sky before looking down again.

“I didn’t like it much when I was human,” Ray admitted. “And besides, it's been so long now.”

Dewees was waiting at the car, dressed for some reason in what looked like a chauffer’s uniform, complete with cap.

“Well, that’s inconspicuous,” said Frank.

“What are you doing, James?” said Mikey politely.

“Master Way requires the use of the town car,” said Dewees loftily. Dewees did like to have the right clothes for the right occasion, Mikey reflected. Though they could both - technically - drive, the cars Mikey and Gerard learned in were a far cry from modern vehicles, and Dewees was the only one with a legally valid license.

“I’ve told you a hundred times to call me Gerard, James,” said Gerard, and Dewees looked disgruntled, as though that would be an affront to his dignity.

“Where to, sirs?” he asked. Mikey was up front in order to give directions, and it didn’t take long for them to arrive at the warehouse.

“They’re expecting us, right?” Ray looked nervous.

“Of course,” said Mikey.

“And there aren’t like - charms - or wards - on the threshold or anything?”

“Andy took them all down,” Mikey told him.

“Does he know what he’s doing?” Ray winced.

“Ray, they live with a vampire,” Mikey said patiently. “They’ve managed not to incinerate Pete so far, so I think they can handle making sure it's safe for us.”

“I know. It’s just - Andy Hurley,” Ray shivered a bit. “I can’t believe I’m voluntarily walking into his lair.”

“ Aw, do the stories of the big bad vampire hunter scare you Ray?” Frank teased him.”

“Yes,” said Ray bluntly. “As they should you.”

“Well, he hasn’t tried to kill us yet,” said Mikey reasonably.

“But there are weapons in there!” said Ray.

Mikey rolled his eyes and knocked on the door. After a long moment, Pete threw it open and said brightly,

“Hey! Hey, come on in,” so apparently he wasn’t holding grudges about Gerard’s initial coldness. They all filed inside and Ray did a visible double-take at the rows and rows of crossbows, shotguns and other artillery. Pete winked at him: “Relax. We only use them on the guests we don’t really like. I’m kidding! I’m kidding!” When both Gerard and Ray looked alarmed. “You guys want some bloo - ohhh yeah that’s right, sorry. But I have the substitute Patrick makes?”

“We’ll….pass,” said Frank. “Thanks though.”

“What’s up,” Joe wandered into the room and nodded at everyone, followed by Patrick and Andy. Andy was holding a thick book and Patrick had a laptop under his arm.

“We brought some stuff too,” Ray said, got a few books out of his backpack.

and “But first, why don’t you tell us everything you know about faeries,” said Patrick, a bit confrontationally. “Seeing as you kind of frankly owe us.”

“Alright,” Gerard sat down on the couch and drew a deep breath. “So, vampires have known about faeries for pretty much as long as anyone remembers. To say our relationship isn’t exactly friendly would be….an understatement.”

“So they’re the ones we have a centuries-old blood feud with! I knew it had to be something, if it wasn’t werewolves,” Pete said.

“I didn’t say it was a blood feud,” Gerard said. “To be honest I’m not entirely sure what a blood feud entails. We’ve just had a lot of problems with them over the years - they draw attention to the supernatural, which puts us all at risk.”

“Also they’re just assholes for fun,” said Frank.

“Well, it can certainly seem that way,” Gerard said. “The truth is, we don’t know a lot about their motivations. There are two main courts - one based here in America and another in Wales in the UK - hence the whole King Arthur legends.”

“Those are _true?”_ Patrick asked.

“They’re a mixture like most of these things,” Ray said. “Morgana was definitely real though. She was the Queen in Albion. The current Queen here is called Acantha.”

“Have you ever met her?” Andy asked.

“No,” Gerard said. “But you need to understand something - when you enter the faerie realm, you won’t see them the way they appeared to us in the forest.”

“I knew it!” exclaimed Patrick.

“You did?” Ray blinked. “Are you psychic?”

“What? No, there was just - something about them. I felt like I was looking at them through a screen - or - or looking at a mirage or something. Didn’t you guys?” he asked Joe and Andy.

“Can’t say that I did,” Joe and Andy looked at each other.

“Huh,” Patrick said.

“Anyway,” said Gerard. “To visit the Queen, you’ll have to go down into her court, which is probably underground. Down there, you’ll see the faeries how they really look.”

“How do they really look?” said Patrick.

Gerard and Ray shared a strange look.

“Well, there’s not one way. It’s - they’re difficult to describe. You’ll just have to see for yourself I suppose. But don’t act shocked or show fear or weakness. That’s the worst thing you can do. Just act like it's not a surprise.”

“We can do that,” Pete nodded. “What else?”

“Well, I would tell you not to promise her anything or make any deals,” Gerard said dryly, “But you didn’t exactly listen the last time.”

“I can handle it,” Pete rolled his eyes.

“I hate it when he says that,” said Joe.

*

  
  


The rest of the month was thankfully quiet in supernatural activity, so they were able to play a few more shows, some of which Mikey attended. Joe thought it was very weird that he had to apparently get his brother’s permission just to do normal things, but vampires were weird in general and the Ways were weird in particular. He didn’t think Gabriel Saporta had those kinds of rules for his people, but then again, he’d never asked.

The night of the full moon was clear and cool, which was something. It would probably suck even more to have to possibly do battle with an evil treacherous faerie court _in the rain._ There was a sense of deja-vu as they pulled up to the forest this time - on the last occasion, Joe had been nervous to have the Way vampires accompanying them. This time, he rather wished they were.

"Hold up," Joe said suddenly as they piled out of the truck. "How are we supposed to find the clearing again?"

"I know how to get there," said Patrick.

"Huh? How?" Joe stopped walking. Something worrying occured to him. "Okay tell the truth," he looked into Patrick's eyes and said seriously: "Are you actually psychic, Patrick?"

"No, I just remembered some landmarks. Then when we got back I made a sketch map."

Andy laughed and clapped Joe on the back, and Pete beamed:

"My boyfriend is soooo smart," before going in for a kiss, which Patrick gave him, though he looked a bit embarrassed and checked all around them quickly to make sure no-one was looking. Patrick took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket, turned it around and studied for a little bit by Pete's flashlight. Then:

“This way,” he directed them, and they entered the forest.

Patrick's map wasn't perfect, but it was good enough, and they found the faerie ring again without too much trouble. It looked different under the full moon, the glow of the flowers more obvious, and the trees themselves almost seeming to exude light. They looked thicker and fuller than they should by Fall, and Joe shivered a little though it wasn't terribly cold.

“Okay,” Pete called, and stood in the middle of the ring with his arms spread out. “We're here!” His tone clearly implied _assholes,_ but to Joe's infinite relief, he didn't say it. There was silence for several minutes.

“Are we...being stood up?” Patrick asked.

“No, they always keep their word, remember?” said Pete. “They're just messing with us.”

Sure enough, there was a ripple of that weird laughter all around the clearing, and a second later the faerie eyes started winking into existence. There were fewer, this time, but when Joe looked back to the middle of the clearing, the same two that had served as spokespeople before were standing there. They were smiling.

“You kept your bargain,” one of them observed. “I sense no other vampires here.”

“We have a deal,” Pete reminded them.

“You need not lecture us on that score,” said the other. “Now come. The Queen is waiting.”

They both turned and gestured for the group to follow them. There didn't seem to be any objections to the flashlight, so though Pete could see pretty well in the dark now he kept it on for the benefit of the humans. They seemed to go deeper and deeper into the forest, far off the paths, and then they were standing in front of a tree that at one moment seemed like an ordinary – if huge and ancient – oak tree, and the next appeared to contain a door, embossed with thin lines of gold.

“How the-?” Joe said, before remembering what the vampires had said about not acting surprised, so he stopped himself. Faeries were clearly capable of all kinds of illusions. They heard him anyway, and laughed their mocking laugh. 'Play it cool', he reminded himself. 'Don't let them get to you'.

Though the oak had looked huge from the outside, it was still within the bounds of a regular tree. the minute they were through the door, they were suddenly in a vast, cavernous space, a spiral staircase that wound down and down, each step at least two meters wide and made of some slick black stone Joe could not identify. The handrails appeared to be made of ivy, but when he gripped one, it felt solid, like carved wood. The only light came braziers that seemed to be floating in space, but perhaps the walls just disguised like these faeries seemed to disguise everything.

The two faeries that had spoken were still the only ones visible as they led the way down the staircase, and so far they looked just as they had on the outside. But Joe had the eerie sense of being watched by hundreds of pairs of eyes, and then suddenly, both they and the steps beneath him seemed to wink out of existence. Joe gasped and expected to fall through the dark, but instead he found himself in a vast hallway, almost like a cavern, with mosaic windows in the darkest shades of blue, red and green. They didn't seem to let light in, but rather cast shadows in their shades onto the dark stone floor. The walls could barely be seen, but they were lit with braziers.

As the humans descended, all those eyes Joe had felt upon him were suddenly visible. The hall was full – of _creatures,_ faeries – they must be, in their true form. Now Joe knew why Gerard said they were hard to describe. For one thing, they were all different. Some looked sort of like forest creatures, but no creature Joe had ever seen in the real world. They had twisting horns, faces half like humans and half like goats, hooves, claws, eyes with vertical pupils. Others were more like trees, ancient and gnarled, seeming almost to have grown into benches that lined the hall. Moss grew over their limbs and their faces seemed carved from wood, mouths like cracks and eyes like knolls. They all seemed to be feasting, some sort of amber nectar-like substance flowing from drinking horns, eating bowls full of....full of _bugs_ , Joe realized, his stomach turning, bugs that were _still alive_. Glow-worms and earthworms, fireflies, ladybugs, larvae.

“I'm gonna puke,” whispered Patrick.

“Act. Normal,” said Andy through gritted teeth. The two faeries that had been leading them turned around, and Joe saw they were both of the horned kind, something between mouths and muzzles on their faces, with completely black, shining eyes. Each wore a dull bronze band on their foreheads, and held a wooden spear with a bronze point.

“Ugh!” Pete couldn't help a low exclamation, and the faeries grinned malevolently in unison.

“The queen awaits,” said one of them, and its real voice was nothing like the musical hum they had heard on the surface. It was a low, guttural growl, more hellish than angelic. Joe hoped his horror didn't show on his face. He looked to Andy, as calm and stoic as ever, and Andy glanced sideways at him and nodded. Joe swallowed, as the guard-faeries or whatever they were made a sweeping gesture, up a central walkway between the benches of revellers. At the far end of the walkway was a dais, and on the dais sat the queen.

Her throne was enormous, carved from twisted wood, and inlaid with thousands of brilliant gemstones the brightest thing in the hall. In her clawed hand was a wooden sceptre made of the same stuff. Her face was deeply lined and appeared almost like stone, worn away by water over the ages, but her eyes were like deep-set black gems, and like many of her subjects, her mouth was full of jagged teeth. Joe couldn't tell if she had horns, or the protrusions of her head were some sort of elaborate crown, or even matted locks of hair tied up with bronze bands. The throne, the sceptre, the queen herself - everything about her seemed a thousand years old, older than the forest itself.

Where the hell had humans gotten Tinkerbell?

The queen did not speak, but raised the sceptre once and then brought it down with a thud on the dais.

“You may approach,” said one of the guards. 'May' was obviously not what they meant because one of them used the butt of their spear to prod Patrick in the back, making him say,

“Hey!” and stumble forwards – Andy caught his arm to steady him and they all made their way down the aisle. As they walked, all the faeries around them turned, swivelling their eyes and heads to follow their progress. One cackled right in Joe's ear and he had to supress the instinctive flinch.

“Kneel,” hissed one of the guards as they came to the dais, and more or less angled his spear so that Joe tripped over it, and ended up on his knees in any case. All the faeries laughed. Andy, Patrick and Pete clearly thought it best not to piss anybody off immediately, because they knelt too. The queen didn't move for a long moment, but her black-gem eyes glittered. Then:

“The vampire,” she said. Her voice was impossible to describe, and impossible to compare – something like water, something like wind, something deep and gravelly and deafening and echoey even though she hadn't spoken loudly. Joe had the sensation that her voice was inside his head – like she had spoken _to his brain_ rather than his ears, and it was so terrifying and strange that he almost toppled over. Patrick looked shocked, then covered it, and even Andy shivered for a second. Pete didn't look particularly surprised. He stood up and stepped forwards, just the slightest hint of defiance in his posture. The guards snarled quietly.

“So!” The queen said inside Joe's head. “You are he. The fledgling that the mighty William Beckett could not subdue.” Her tone was amused, aggression just beneath the surface.

“I am,” said Pete.

“Say 'your highness' when you address the queen!” One of the guards brandished a spear threateningly.

“You are very small,” said the queen.

“It's been said, _your highness_ ” said Pete.

“And very insolent,” - in the same tone.

“That has also been said,” said Pete. “But you said you wanted to meet me. And here I am.”

“And what a disappointment,” said the queen. The faeries roared with laughter, and even the queen chuckled at her own joke. Pete looked impassive.

“What do you want from me?” he asked.

The queen smiled.


	10. Chapter 10

There was a long silence. The court held its breath. So did Patrick.

“We wish to know,” the queen drawled, eyes raking over Pete as if he were some mildly interesting specimen pinned to a board, “How it is possible that such a....creature as you could resist the might of such a powerful vampire.

“Guess I'm full of surprises,” Pete drawled. One of the guard-faeries lost their temper and slammed the butt of its spear into Pete's side.

“Stop it!” Patrick shouted before he could help himself, and the faeries laughed. Patrick felt his hands clench into fists – Pete had stumbled, but quickly righted himself and resumed his cocky demeanour. He was nervous, Patrick could tell, but you'd have to know him very well to see it.

“What are you?” the queen hissed, angered now. She rose from her throne and stood, still clutching her sceptre.

“A vampire,” Pete said.

“Say Your Highness when you address the queen!” the guard snapped.

“Your Highness,” Pete repeated. He was getting past nervous and into scared, but he held his ground. “But. Now that I've answered your summons, I have a proposition for you.”

A rumble of curiosity ran through the hall. Patrick's heart sank, and he looked at Joe and Andy. Joe looked terrified, but Andy maintained his composure.

“Really.” The queen smirked as she resumed her seat. Now Pete was speaking in her language. “And what form would that proposition take?”

“I propose we unite to kill William Beckett,” said Pete, and the court burst into noise. There were shouts of agreement, shocked sounds, a few exclamations. Mostly the faeries laughed – that seemed to be their default response, Patrick thought – and tried not to let his shock show on his face. He should have known, he thought, anger beginning to crawl hot and red from his brain throughout his body. He should have known Pete was planning something like this, the secretive, mistrustful bastard. Why could he never just _tell_ Patrick these things?

The queen's expression did not change, smirk remaining in place on her weathered face.

“We see,” she said, and the court quietened down at once. “And why do you suppose we would assist you in this endeavour?”

“You obviously hate him, Your Highness,” Pete said. “As do I.”

“You would murder your own sire?” Now the queen sounded curious.

“I would.”

“You are truly Beckett's fledgling.”

That hit home. Patrick saw it in his Pete's face, but the change was subtle.

“Should we assist,” said the queen. “What will you promise us?”

“Anything that I own,” Pete said without missing a beat, “Except only my life, and my soul.”

 _“Soul!_ ” the queen cackled, striking the dais with her staff: “Soul! You don't _have_ a soul, vampire!”

“Yes he does!” Patrick shouted, over the court's uproarious laughter. One of the guards smacked him with their spear, so hard he fell forwards and had to catch himself on his hands. Patrick felt himself turning red with humiliation, as the courts' laughter reached new pitch.

“But,” said the queen: “You will promise us anything in your possession?”

“Anything in my possession, yes,” Pete said.

“It is done!” the queen struck the dais with her sceptre. “We will assist you in this endeavour, and then we will name our price at a time of our choosing.”

“Then we have a deal,” said Pete.

*

_“What the actual fuck is wrong with you?”_ Patrick screamed, the minute they were back on the surface and the faeries had left them in the flower ring. “Have you not been listening this whole time? Are you that stupid, are you just trying to get yourself killed? Is your life not interesting enough or something? What the actual fuck, Pete?”

“Jesus Rick, calm down,” Pete rolled his eyes.

“Do not tell me to calm down,” Patrick threatened. He felt like he might actually punch Pete in the face, whether or not it would hurt him, so he turned around and paced round the clearing once or twice, then kicked a tree.

“OW!” he yelled, and Joe said,

“Uh, maybe don't do that – the trees are like, sacred to them or some shit, remember?”

“Fuck you,” said Patrick, though he wasn't even mad with Joe.

"That was pretty dumb of you Pete," said Andy seriously. 

"Oh my God everybody chill," Pete said. "I promised her anything in my possession, except my life and soul. I don't own anything irreplaceable."

"You heard what Gerard said," said Andy: "They'll twist your words."

"I don't see how they could wiggle out of that one," Pete shrugged. 

Patrick was almost too angry to speak. “How can you be so arrogant?” he hissed. “You think you're smarter than the queen of the faeries? Those things are a billion years old, Pete, and they've been tricking humans into shit for centuries. You think you're so smart because you can phrase things carefully? I absolutely guarantee she's going to fuck you over. That's if Beckett doesn't kill you first.”

Pete said nothing, and looked obstinate.

“You don't care, do you? You don't care if you die and -” 'Leave me. You don't care if you leave me alone, after everything. You selfish bastard.' “I can't talk to you right now,” Patrick snapped, turned and started to walk back towards the truck. At least he thought it was towards the truck – he'd given Pete the sketch map to hold while he was using a flashlight. It was odd, because Patrick never used to have a great sense of direction, especially when he was angry. But lately it had seemed he just – had a sense for where things were, and how to get places. He got back to the truck, in any case, yanked the door of the cab open and sat down in the passenger seat, still breathing hard. 'Can I do this?' The thought came to him, unbidden. 'Can I be in a relationship with Pete?' It seemed like every week Pete came up with new and creative ways to get himself killed, and quite possibly take the rest of them with him. For a split second, he considered telling Pete to go fuck himself – that if he wanted to go up against Beckett, he'd be doing it alone. But Patrick would never do that. He couldn't. If Pete was going they would all go - it was as simple as that.

Patrick sat and stewed for a while, until he heard Joe yell,

“There he is!” and his friends all got into the truck as well, Andy driving. “What the fuck, Patrick!?” Joe was annoyed. “You can’t just storm off like that! We’ve been looking for you!”

Patrick felt immediately guilty. He hadn’t thought of that – and of course, the others didn’t know about his new-found sense of direction.

“Sorry,” he said contritely. “I was mad at Pete.”

“We all are,” said Andy, and turned the ignition key.

*

“You’re going to what?” said Mikey.

“Kill William Beckett,” Pete sounded like he was discussing the weather. Mikey cradled the phone between his shoulder and ear so he could take a bag of blood substitute from the refrigerator.

“And the faerie queen just agreed to this? What did you give her?”

“Nothing!” Pete said. “At least – not yet. I did promise her something.”

Mikey’s stomach dropped. “What?” he said.

“Anything in my possession,” said Pete.

Mikey put the blood substitute back. He found that he had suddenly lost his appetite.

“Look I know it sounds bad,” Pete went on. “But look at it this way – she can’t touch my friends, because you can’t own a person. She can’t kill me, because I said except for my life and soul. All she can take is objects, and I don’t own anything I care about that much. I mean if she wants my bass, I’ll be kind of bummed, but I can always get another one.”

“Pete, you…” Mikey shook his head, as though Pete could see him. “You shouldn’t have done this.”

“It will be fine,” Pete said. “Now we just have to figure out where Beckett is hiding.”

“Gee might be able to help with that,” Mikey said. “All the clan leaders can sort of locate people psychically if they concentrate – probably any powerful vampire could, but of course the heads of clans are the strongest. I’m really not sure if we should tell you though. I don’t want your permanent death on my conscience.”

“I’ll find out anyway,” Pete pointed out. “Gabe Saporta would tell me, and if he won’t, I’ll just ask around in vampire clubs and shit. Someone’s bound to know.”

“Fine, I’ll ask him,” Mikey sighed. “But I take no responsibility for what you do with this information.”

“None delegated,” Pete assured him.

They hung up and Mikey went to Gerard’s office. It was empty, so he went to the library, and found Gerard looking at a book with Ray.

“So, Pete made a deal with the faerie queen to kill William Beckett,” said Mikey.

Gerard stared at him for a long moment.

“He did what?” said Gerard.

“That’s what I said,” said Mikey.

“What did he offer her?”

“Anything in his possession,” Mikey said. Gerard groaned and put his head down on the table, whilst Ray drew in his breath sharply.

“ _Anything?_ He said _anything_? That’s literally the worst word you can use in a deal with faeries.”

“Apparently he doesn't own anything he values more than getting revenge,” Mikey shrugged.

“Well, you're not going,” Gerard said, “Before you get any ideas. This could throw vampire society in chaos.”

“I'm not planning on _going,_ ” Mikey rolled his eyes. “They just need us to help locate him, even generally. Plus we owe them – we did kind of bring the faeries into their lives.”

Gerard appeared to consider this. Mikey made his eyes just a tiny bit wider.

“Okay fine,” Gerard shrugged. “As long as you swear to me you'll stay out of it.”

“I swear,” said Mikey.

“Alright. Well, he's pretty close. I've never sensed him to be far outside Chicago, probably just South of the city. There are a few Gilded Age houses out that way, so I'd suggest they start looking at them. If they had a spy it would help a lot. Beckett has plenty of enemies, but few that he wouldn't immediately recognise.”

“Maybe Saporta knows someone,” Ray suggested.

“Unlikely, unless they were turned yesterday. Beckett is exceptionally well-connected and has eyes all over the city.”

Mikey called Pete back and relayed the information. He couldn't help but feel a tiny bit jealous. Not that he'd be willing to face off with William Beckett – it was more the excitement and danger the 16 Candles guys seemed to attract everywhere they went. Mikey's life seemed so dull by comparison. He'd been getting back into guitar lately, in any case – having been to some shows, his fingers had started to itch for the feel of an instrument. He was rusty, but getting better every day now.

“I know just the guy,” Pete said into the phone. “Or at least – I know just the guy who knows just the guy.”

“Be careful,” Mikey said.

“I'm always careful,” said Pete.

  
  


*

  
  


The first time Joe had met Jonathan Walker, his name had been vaguely familiar. He couldn't place why, until Pete said,

“You're a hunter and your name is Jonathan Walker?” and he laughed.

“What?” Joe had asked him.

“Like Jonathan Harker,” Pete explained. “You know, in the original Dracula?”

Jon Walker nodded impassively. He did most things impassively, so far as Joe could see.

“He's really good,” said Spencer, who had introduced them. “Jon's parents were hunters so he was literally raised in the life.”

“I'm not comfortable sending a human out alone for reconaissance,” Pete said. “No offense to present company.”

“I'm not comfortable sending a teenager out,” said Patrick.

“I'm twenty,” said Jon Walker. “And besides, like Spencer said, I was raised in the life. Stake-outs are nothing new to me, no pun intended.”

“At least take somebody with you,” said Patrick.

“I'll go,” Joe volunteered. He could do with a break from the tension in the warehouse lately. Pete and Patrick were low-key fighting over Pete's ridiculous deal. Either of them indiviually could turn the atmosphere cold when they were in a bad mood, and when they were in a bad mood with each other the effect was multiplied.

“Are you good?” Jon Walker asked him frankly. Joe felt a little offended at being so challenged by somebody younger than him, even if only a couple of years.

“I seem to be doing alright,” he said. “I made that, for example,” and pointed to one of the modified crossbows behind Jon's head. Jon Walker went over and studied it for a minute.

“Good,” he said. “But you can't take weapons like that on a stakeout. Maybe a couple of silver knives, if we conceal them properly.”

“I want to come too,” said Spencer.

“Too risky,” said Pete. “Beckett's people already know what Joe looks like, we can't have two people they could catch out.”

Spencer's face fell, and Joe felt bad for him. He was glad Spencer seemed to have a new friend, after losing both Ryan and Brendon to Beckett, and he could certainly appreciate how Spencer would want a part in taking Beckett down for good.

Jon had a car, of a sort – a very old, beat-up hatchback with plenty of space in the trunk, that looked like it was held together with duct tape and hope.

“She's reliable,” Jon said, patting the roof of the car with affection. Joe got into the passenger seat and they headed out of the city.

“So if you're a hunter,” Joe said to Jon, “How come Beckett doesn't know who you are?”

“I'm sure he's heard of me,” Jon said as he turned the wheel with one hand, “But he doesn't know my face. My parents were pretty strict about that when I was growing up, and since I've been hunting without them, he's either been quiet or too powerful to challenge.”

Joe fell quiet and watched the scenery. Jon seemed like a chill guy, and it was nice to get out of the warehouse without feeling like a side-character in the Pete-and-Patrick show for a change. It wasn't that Joe wasn't happy for them. He was. It was just they got very intense sometimes, both when they were fighting and when they were writing songs. Take last night's band practice. Patrick had turned up with a pile of sheet music, messily scored in his own hand, handed Joe a few leaves and said,

“Here's yours.”

“What's this?” Joe looked at the music. At the top of the sheet was scrawled 'Saturday (Two More Weeks???)'

“It's the song me and Pete were working on. Its finished. I thought it would make a good lead single, don't you?”

“Wait, this is done?”

“Yeah. Why, what's wrong with it?”

“Nothing's wrong with it. It looks great. It's just...” It's just, Fall Out Boy had been Joe's idea, technically. And now he hadn't even helped with their apparent first lead single. “Never mind,” he had said, and put his guitar strap on. The melody was super catchy at first playing, and Joe felt a little pang of jealousy at Patrick's talent.

Joe had a map on which they had circled four likely mansions near the northern outskirts of the city. Illinois had a surprising number of Gilded Age properties once you started looking for them. The first was in poor repair and seemed pretty much abandoned – they skulked around for a bit, just in case, but there was no sign that anybody had been around for a long time, and in any case the blinds were broken. The next was well-kept, and the lawn tended, but a notice on the door was advertising guided tours and giving information about the historic owners. The third, however, was well-kept and quiet, blinds drawn down in the daylight. It was grey brick, with huge oak doors and neo-gothic turrets on either side – just Beckett's style, Joe thought, and realized he'd said it out loud when Jon nodded.

“He's a dramatic son of a bitch,” Jon said. They drove around back, where iron gates cut them off from a long lawn adorned with several stone fountains.

“I can't see a thing,” Joe complained. “The house is miles away.” Jon held up a finger, reached into his backpack, and produced a pair of binoculars. Joe was impressed. Jon held the binoculars to his eyes and adjusted them until, Joe supposed, they were focused.

“Nothing,” he said. “All blinds drawn and no movement, though I suppose there wouldn't be, at this time of day.”

“So now what?” said Joe.

“Now we wait,” said Jon, settled back in his seat, and produced, of all things, a paperback. He started reading, and offered the binoculars to Joe. Joe looked – but it was as he'd said, nothing to see but the stones and doors of the mansion. They traded off watching – admittedly, Joe might have used them to scan passers-by for a bit, too, he was getting bored – but then dusk fell, and being late Fall the night came on quickly – Jon flicked a switch on the binoculars, and something glowed, and he was aiming them right at a window when he suddenly exclaimed,

“There!”

  
  



	11. Chapter 11

“So um,” Patrick said to Spencer: “How have you uh, been?”

Spencer shrugged. He looked older now. Of course, he was older, they all were, and a couple of years of adolescence could make a big change to anyone. He was taller and had stubble, and his hair had grown out nearly to his shoulders. But it was more than that. There was a seriousness, a gravity about him that hadn't been there before. Patrick guessed losing your two best friends in the world, in short order, would do that.

“Okay,” said Spencer now. They were all sitting up waiting for Jon and Joe to return from the stakeout – even Andy, who wasn't a natural night-owl, didn't feel comfortable going to bed until they had safely returned.”What about you guys? I heard your band got signed. Congrats, you're getting quite the reputation around Chicago.”

“We are?” Pete said eagerly.

“Yeah,” said Spencer. “How does it feel to be a heart throb?”

Pete blushed and muttered something about it all being dumb, and Patrick rolled his eyes: “He's loving it,” he told Spencer. “Don't encourage him, or his ego won't fit through the door anymore.”

At that moment, they heard the sound of a car pulling up oustide, and everybody looked to the doors at once. There was noise outside, and a second later Joe and Jon both burst in, very unsubtly.

“We found them!” Joe said, a little too excitedly for the task at hand, Patrick thought. “It's this place,” he gestured to a mark on the map he was holding: “Big old creepy mansion, very Beckett, and there's at least three more with him-” his eyes fell on Spencer then, and he stopped himself, possibly realizing he wasn't being very sensitive.

“It's alright,” said Spencer. “I might as well know. Are they there?”

“It looks like it,” Joe said, almost apologetically. “We didn't get close but I'm fairly sure I saw Brendon through the blinds for a second, and if Brendon's there I guess Ryan is too.”

“Spence,” Pete said suddenly. “You know we wouldn't – ask you, right? To come along, I mean. When it comes to a fight, they...”

“What if I want to come?” Spencer countered. “Beckett took two of my best friends from me. You're not the only one who wants to see him go down.”

“Are you sure?” Andy said. “It could come to a fight, our people against Beckett's people. Could you stake Ryan or Brendon, if your life depended on it?”

Spencer looked torn.

“See, you'd at least hesitate,” Andy said. “It's only natural. But that hesitation could cost your life, or one of our lives. Don't think Beckett wouldn't use it.”

Spencer was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "I guess I'll sit this one out. Don't -...” then he stopped himself.

“We're not staking any extras unless we have to,” said Pete.

"I mean - if you have to..."

"If we have to, we will. We're gonna strike at the new moon. Apparently it makes the faeries stronger or some shit.”

“Man, I still can't believe you made a deal with faeries,” Jon shook his head. “You know they're gonna screw you over, right?”

“So I hear,” Pete rolled his eyes. “I was very specific. Faeries are bound by their word. I did actually research and plan it out before I made the deal.”

“So what help are you getting, exactly?”

“Soldiers, basically. She's gonna send us a bunch of her royal guard to help us out in the fight. Plus fae can disguise themselves pretty much however they want, so it can be a stealth operation.”

Jon said nothing, but looked sceptical, and went to investigate the crossbows.

  
  


*

  
  


The faeries presented themselves in their usual way when they met up near the mansion. They were shimmering pale forms with long hair and cruel eyes and indeterminate gender, but then Patrick blinked, and the next thing he knew he was looking at a group of human teenagers, in dark clothes with band logos and studded belts and heavy makeup. They apparently had a very good sense of what vampire groupies looked like.

“We go often among humans,” said one of them, as though it could read Patrick's mind. “We always have. You just never notice, because you are all blind.”

No-one rose to the bait. The queen had provided them with eight soldiers that Patrick could see – either she wasn't willing to risk more, or just assumed that eight of her people would be more than sufficient. Among them were the two guards who had so far done most of the talking.

“Are you armed?” Pete asked directly. They had no weapons visible to Patrick.

“More than you know, human” said the faerie laconically, in odd contrast to its current form as a goth adolescent. The16 candles crew had commandeered Jon's vehicle for the night, because Beckett wouldn't recognise it, and it was kind of a tight squeeze but had gotten them there. Patrick wondered if the faeries had some mode of transport, or could sort of just – _will_ themselves from place to place. That sounded pretty cool actually.

“Now its your turn,” the faerie went on. “We will cast a glamour over you so the vampires cannot see you until we are inside the mansion.”

There was a long pause.

“Well, do it then,” Joe said.

“It is done,” said the faerie, and Pete gave a sudden exclamation of surprise. “You are invisible to the eyes of the undead.”

“We are!” Pete exclaimed. “Joe, I just heard you talk, but I can't _see_ you!”

“The glamour is different for humans,” the faerie explained.

Patrick felt horribly uneasy. So far as he could see, they were all as visible as ever. Not even a shimmer of invisibility. But if Pete said he couldn't see them, he couldn't see them. He'd just have to trust. Joe and Andy opened the gates and they all walked up the path. The new moon made the night dark, and a distinct chill had fallen. The grounds smelled of fresh grass and cold stone, almost a wholesome smell, a kind of mockery considering the inhabitants of the house. One of the faeries knocked on the door with a heavy brass knocker.

There was no answer.

“It's still early,” Joe put in. “Maybe they're all asleep still.”

The faerie tried again, and called,

“Hello?”

Patrick jumped a mile. It had changed its voice, and sounded – like a human, a young human, matching with its disguise as a teenager. Another moment – then a groan of metal bolts being pulled back, and vampire Ryan Ross stood in the doorway.

Vampire Ryan Ross looked – like a vampire. Granted, he'd kind of looked like a vampire before, at least the type of vampire Patrick had first been familiar with – the pretty, skinny boys Beckett favoured for his clan, sharp features and long limbs. Now he was dressed like a real Dandy, the tailored trousers, the waistcoat and cravat, the meticulously groomed hair. The expression on his face was cool and neutral. Patrick hadn't known him well as a human, but even so it was a shock to the system. He froze on instinct – he knew logically Ryan couldn't see him, but the physiological fear response at being so close to a hostile vampire was hard to overcome. Patrick was suddenly very, very glad Spencer had stayed behind.

“Yes?” said Ryan.

“Does Master Beckett live here?” said one of the faeries, still in that fake voice. Ryan's eyes flicked over the little group. Patrick tried not to breathe, but Ryan didn't focus on him.

“Why?” Ryan asked. “What is your business with him?”

“We wanna be vampires,” said another one of the faeries, sounding exactly like some of the more annoying kids Patrick had gone to school with.

“Why?” Ryan asked again, without changing his intonation.

“Well like, vampires are cool,” said one of the faeries. “And strong and fast and shit.”

“And they stay young!” said another one. “I mean, who wants to get old, am I right man?”

“What compelling reasons,” said Ryan.

“He doesn't have to turn us right away,” said the first faerie.

“Quite so. He is William Beckett. He doesn't have to do anything.”

“He could just like – bite us.”

“We wanna get bitten.” 

“To see what its like, you know?”

“I heard its amazing.”

“Like drugs.”

“Better than drugs.”

“Yeah, I heard its better than drugs.”

Ryan stared at them for a long moment. The faeries did a decent impression of nervous excitement. Then he said,

“Fine. Master Beckett can always use willing donations,” and opened the door wider.

The hallway was grand, but looked old, faded furnishings and ornaments not quite up to the standard of the Dandy manor Beckett had kept in the city. Patrick was incredibly careful not to touch anything – _he_ might be invisible to vampires, but he was pretty sure they would notice if he knocked over a vase or something. The others seemed to be taking the same care, while the faeries pretended to stare and admire everything they passed, saying things like,

“Dude,”

and,

“Awesome,” to each other. It was clear Beckett had fewer people here – obviously, some were dead, and others had defected to Gabriel Saporta after he had won in the last encounter. Patrick glimpsed several empty rooms, mostly dusty, with heavy drapes and blinds which could block out the sun in the daylight. Ryan finally stopped in front of a pair of oak doors.

“Wait here,” he said. “I'll let you know if he wants to see you.” He knocked once, and then slipped inside. Momentarily, one of the faeries resumed its old form, giving Patrick a vicious wink that made him shiver.

Ryan re-emerged, and said,

“You can go in,” and held the door for the faeries, who made sure to dawdle enough on their way in that Patrick and the others could slide in unnoticed. Ryan entered behind them.

Beckett sat in an ornate chair with his feet on a large desk. He looked just as Patrick remembered – a slightly different outfit, the same hair, and the stupid top hat he liked so much. He was toying with a sharp letter opener, pressing the point against the pad of one finger, then twirling it with his other hand. His expression was mildly amused. At his right hand stood Brendon. Brendon had his own stupid hat now. Ryan glided around the desk to Brendon's side, and the pair kissed theatrically. Patrick felt his eyebrows go up - so that had worked out for Ryan. Beckett flicked a quick glance at the lovebirds, then his focus returned to the faerie group. He was silent for a long moment. Then:

“So!” Beckett slammed both hands down on the desk, dropping the letter opener. Patrick startled. The faeries looked like they did as well, but they were probably faking it. Brendon slipped one arm around Ryan's waist and leaned in, grinning as he watched the show. “You wish to join my clan.”

“Yes, Master,” one of the faeries said, doing an imitation of wide-eyed reverence. “We wish to be vampires.”

“Why?” Beckett echoed Ryan's earlier question.

“Who wouldn't!” the faerie said. “Vampires are so much better than humans.”

“And Dandies are the most powerful of the vampires,” said another one. “Everyone knows that.”

“Why did you come to me instead of Saporta?” said Beckett.

The faerie made an expression of distaste: “We would never support that imposter.”

“He negotiates with humans!”

“He's a treaty-lover.”

“Like, what's the point of being a vampire if you don't _use_ it?”

“Vampires are the superior species, so they should be in charge.”

“Everyone knows you're the real Head of the Dandies,” the first faerie spoke again.

“Oh, they do, do they?” Beckett's tone was mocking, but Patrick thought he looked slightly pleased by the flattery. “And who is _everyone?”_

“Well, everybody who cares about vampires,” the second faerie said. “Like, we know who's really in charge of this city.”

“Hm.” said Beckett. He pushed his chair back from and stood up in one fluid movement, before prowling around to the front of the desk. Joe had to jump very quickly out of his path to avoid a collision, but Beckett's eyes never went near him. It was incredibly unsettling, and Patrick had to back up a few steps as Beckett approached the disguised faeries. They turned their faces up to look at him, and huddled closer together. He picked out a faerie who'd taken a form of the type he liked – tall, thin, elegant, with rather better applied eyeliner than her compatriots – and ran a long finger down her cheek. “Some of you have some promise. It was stupid of you to come here. In normal times, I would simply eat you,” he shrugged one elegant shoulder. “It isn't my habit to sire vampires by request. But perhaps you are capable of learning, and since the traitor Saporta has damaged my numbers, I have need of more people.”

“It would be an _honor_ to be turned by you, sir,” said one of the faeries theatrically. Beckett smirked, but Patrick could tell that the compliments were working on him. “You,” he said, indicating the faerie he had just touched. “What is your name?”

“Emma, my lord,” the faerie actually made a little curtsey.

“It will do,” Beckett acknowledged, then in one motion tipped her head back and plunged his fangs into her throat. Partick jumped, but the faerie didn't even flinch. Beckett drew a long draught. Then he reared back.

“What?” He gasped, as the faerie's blood seemed to bubble and fizzle around his mouth. “What are-?”

The faerie smiled evilly, and returned to that ethereal form the faeries preferred above ground.

“Fae,” Beckett spat, and he seemed to be choking, trying to spit the blood back out onto the carpet. Brendon and Ryan both looked stunned for a second, then rushed forward to assist their leader, shouting for re-inforcements. In the event, there was very little for Patrick to do – the faeries had dropped the invisibility charm, as evidenced by the vampires now attacking them, but the vampires were outnumbered, unprepared and unarmed, and the humans had iron and steel.

“Pathetic,” Brendon sneered at Patrick while Patrick was busy handcuffing him to Beckett's desk chair with a pair of iron handcuffs. Joe's blowdarts full of holy water had weakened him enough that it wasn't even difficult. “I actually thought you had potential, once.”

“I could say the same for you,” said Patrick, and secured the cuffs. “If you don't want the skin burned off your wrists I suggest you don't struggle too much. You won't be getting out of those.”

Ryan was unconscious, and Joe was standing over him with the dart gun in case he woke up again, while Andy and most of the faeries held the other vampires at stakepoint. The faerie who's blood Beckett had drunk was standing in the middle of the office, a long blade of some glinting metal held to Beckett's throat. Beckett's lips and chin were all burned, still smoking from the faerie's blood, and his eyes were wild.

“Well,” said the faerie to Pete. “Do you want him?”

Pete very calmly stepped over Ryan, and stood to look Beckett in the face. In one hand he held a wooden stake, sharpened to a wicked point.

“Hello, William,” he said.

“Peter,” Beckett rasped, and made a grotesque attempt at a smile. “You've....grown.”

“Have I,” said Pete.

“Oh yes. So much stronger than the last time I saw you. I knew I was right to make a vampire of you, my boy. Such development....and all by yourself.”

“Who said I was all by myself?” said Pete.

“I am your sire,” said Beckett. His eyes darted nervously back and forth. “Who else would aid you?”

“Not all vampires are the same, William, I thought you'd know that by now.” Pete raised the point of the stake to his eye-level and seemed to consider it for a moment.

“No,” Beckett agreed. “No indeed. Some are much stronger than others. And you...you could be one of the strongest, Peter. Who knows. Perhaps in time you could even become the leader of your own clan...if you let me help you. I saw something special in you, that night. I see it clearer now.”

“That's funny,” Pete looked at him over the stake-point. “You haven't exactly been father of the year so far.”

“You haven't let me!” Beckett exclaimed. He was backing up, still coughing and hacking, and soon found himself with his back to the wall and Pete standing in front of him. Two faeries flanked him in case Beckett should make any desperate move. “You ran away from me before I could begin! I had such plans for you Peter. I still do. Imagine what we could do together.”

Pete stopped moving. “What could we do?” he asked, as mildly as if he were enquiring after the weather.

“We could rule this state,” Beckett said. “This country, even! And why stop there? You know, now – how superior we are to them. Humans have had the upper hand for centuries, and what have they done with it? Raped the planet, ruined their own economies, constantly at war – now imagine a world with more _reasonable_ beings to run it.”

“You say that,” said Pete, “Yet it seems to me you couldn't even maintain control of a single clan.”

“Saporta has hampered me at every turn,” Beckett spat. “No doubt he's sold you some story of how I'm destructive, chaotic, as he puts it. That's because he is limited. He's a concillator. He would live side by side with humans rather than take our place in the natural order.”

“The thing is,” Pete said. “Most of my friends are human.”

“They are not _friends_!” Beckett hissed. “They are _food!_ Once you are acclimated to vampire society, you will understand what friendship is.”

“He's right Pete,” Brendon spoke up. “ I used to think I had human friends. But once you understand the way vampires can commune...its completely different. You'll understand.”

Pete wrinkled his nose for a second as though he was thinking, then he said,

“Nah,” and raised the stake.

“You would stake your own sire,” Beckett infused his voice with disgust.

“Apparently,” Pete shrugged. “I am your fledgling.” And he plunged the stake into Beckett's heart.


	12. Chapter 12

“Wait wait, go back a bit,” said Ray through the phoneline. “`ou said it was fizzing?”

“Like it was burning his mouth,” Patrick said. “Melting him, even. You didn't know?”

Down the line came the sound of Ray scribbling frantically on paper. “I don't have any records of vampires biting fae,” he said.”I suppose the fae might have been using some kind of charm to make its blood poisonous, but its equally possible that's just the way they are.”

“Well, I hope it helps.” Patrick shrugged although Ray couldn't see him.

“So have you heard from the queen yet?”

“Not yet,” said Patrick. “Part of the deal was that she gets to name the time of repayment."

“That all sounds a bit like a Damocles sword for your whole life.” said Ray.

“Apparently Pete thinks it's worth it.” Patrick dropped an empty soda can into the recycling bin and headed for the living area.

”I guess,” Ray sounded dubious, then his voice rose. “Man, I can't believe he actually staked Beckett. I thought that fucker could survive anything. I just can't believe he's dead.”

“He's dead,” Patrick assured him. “Ashes. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“I wonder what his followers are going to do.”

“We left a couple of them swearing revenge,” said Patrick dryly. “But I have no idea how that will play out. I guess they'll either try to establish their own cliques or go crawling back to Saporta. Anyway, I've got to go now, talk to you later.” They hung up, then Patrick took his laptop from the kitchen table and settled on the couch, intending to work on some music. He just got a new composition program he'd been fiddling with, and had several ideas forming. But a moment after he'd sat down, Pete vaulted over the back of the couch and settled in next to him, a winsome expression on his face.

“What're you doooing?” he asked, peering over Patrick's shoulder and leaning on him at the same time.

“I'm working,” said Patrick, his eyes glued to the laptop.

“Work is boring, talk to me.”

“Work is what's keeping a roof over our heads, not to mention sustaining the band, which is, you know, our livelihood.”

Pete squirmed restlessly and made several audible sighs, obviously in a needy mood. Patrick tried to ignore him but eventually gave up and closed the laptop with a sigh of his own. Pete immediately got into his lap and demanded,

“Snuggle.”

“You're like a child,” Patrick said, but obliged by putting his arms around Pete and allowing him to put his head on his shoulder. Pete was tense.

“Thinking about the deal?” Patrick asked him.

“I'm not worried,” Pete asserted, playing with the frayed edge of Patrick's sweater. “I said anything I own. I don't own anything I care about _that_ much.”

“Hmm.” Patrick perched his chin on top of Pete's head, letting the hairs tickle at him. “I hope you're right.”

“I will be,” said Pete.

“How are you going to know when she wants her repayment, anyway?” Patrick said.

“I dunno,” Pete shrugged. “I thought I'd let her figure it out.”

The next few weeks were almost suspiciously quiet. Beckett's death seemed to have sent a message out to the vampire community – that none of them were invulnerable, that a formiddable group of hunters was on their trail, that even the faeries were somehow involved now....in any case, all the clans seemed to be on their very best behaviour. Beckett's own remaining followers had dropped off the radar:

“But we can't be complacent,” Andy said. “They could be building a new clan, or planning something else.”

Saporta did a couple of TV news spots making nice with the local politicians, talking about a 'co-operative future' and friendly relations between humans and vampires. Pete was still hanging out with Mikey, and the control he was gaining over his mental shields made him calmer and generally easier to be around. He'd even started to talk about visiting his parents again.

“You should do it,” Patrick encouraged him. “Now they've had time to get used to the idea. And you know, vampires have had kind of a good press lately.”

“Maybe I will. After,” Pete said, and didn't specify after what - but the truth was they were all in a state of limbo, just waiting to find out what the faeries wanted.

“You should've specified a time,” Joe complained at last. “This is bullshit.”

“It's not your problem, Joe,” Pete was tapping away on his laptop as he added show dates to their website.

“Oh shut up. Its all our problem,” Joe replied. And as though in answer to him, there was a knock at the door.

Patrick, Joe, Pete and Andy all looked at each other. The only people who ever came to the warehouse uninvited were Spencer and Jon, and they didn't bother knocking.

“Who is it?” Pete called. There was no answer, but a long pause, and then the knock came again. Pete got up and went to the door and Patrick followed him.

On the doorstep were two faeries in their goth-teenager disguises.

“Remember us?” The one Beckett had drunk from grinned at them, and her companion waved.

“You know, you could not do the voices,” said Pete.

“What would be the fun in that?” said the faerie.

“So let me guess,” said Patrick. “This is a royal summons.”

“It is,” the other faerie pointed at Pete. “For _him.”_

“Yeah, well, this is a package deal,” Joe emerged from the living space to stand in the doorway, with Andy right behind him. “We’re all going.”

The faeries giggled. “A vampire needing humans to protect him,” said the first one. “How…”

“…charming-”

“….how _unusual.”_

“….how pathetic.” And they snickered together.

“That seems kinda rich, seeing as your queen has to send the guards out just to collect little pathetic me,” Pete drawled. “She can’t come herself?”

“Watch your tongue,” snarled the first faerie, suddenly right up in Pete’s space, so fast that Patrick hadn’t even seen it move. The pale light flashed in its eyes, belying its current form. “You have no idea what you think to mock, fledgling.”

“Guess you’ll just have to show me then,” Pete stood his ground, and the faerie turned angrily and stalked from the doorway.

“Wait – where do we go?” Patrick was confused. “Should we uh, come to the forest? Now?”

The other faerie gave him look, as though he was a particularly slow child.

“ _No,”_ it said. “You think the faerie realm is bound by mortal space?”

“Well – no – I mean, I think we all got that when you did the thing with the tree – but how….?”

The faeries rolled their eyes, looking exactly like the teenagers they were impersonating.

“Just follow us,” said one, and they stalked down the path and around to the back of the warehouse, to the space Joe had set up for target practice near a line of trees. They seemed to inspect the trees for a minute, then one made a sweeping gesture – and then one of the trees bore a gilded door, just like the door they had seen in the oak in the forest.

“After you,” said the faerie sarcastically, as the other one opened the door – and then they were back on that sharp slick staircase, feeling the weird eyes on them from every direction.

“Dude,” Joe said in a low voice. “Why do they have to be so deliberately creepy?”

The faeries seemed to find this hysterical, and cackled with laughter. They were back in their true forms, the horned beasts with their cruel spears and the bands on their foreheads.

“Creepy! Creepy!” They mocked him. Joe went tense with anger. Patrick saw Andy put a hand on his army, and he stayed quiet. The throne room, or feasting hall, or whatever it was, stretched out before them just as it had the last time – it might have been even fuller, Patrick thought, fae with scales and fur and shiny slick skin that he hadn’t noticed before, maybe turned out from further afield to see the vampire pay his due. The queen sat in the same spot, in the same pose, as though she hadn’t moved at all since their last visit. Hell, Patrick thought, maybe she hadn’t. Who knew how faeries considered time, or if time even moved the same way down here as it did in the outside world? The whole group made to approach the dais, but two more faeries moved at once to bar Patrick, Andy and Joe.

“Just him,” said their guard, and indicated that Pete should continue to approach the queen.

Pete glanced back at Patrick once, then walked forwards. The path towards the dais seemed a long way.

“You return,” said the queen.

“Well, you did summon me. Your highness,” said Pete.

“Nonetheless, we are pleased to see you keep your word, as we do,” she smiled. At least Patrick thought it was a smile. It was a bit like the crags of her face cracked sideways for a second, then closed again. “Our subjects have described to us how you killed the vampire William Beckett. That was well done. And now, for our part in assisting you, we will have payment.”

“Anything in my possession, except for my life and soul,” Pete acknowledged.

“Very well,” said the queen, and pointed at Patrick. “Bring me the human’s heart.”

*

“Wait, wait!” Pete sounded panicked. There was uproar in the court as the faerie bastards laughed hysterically and pounded their drinks on the tables. Joe felt his jaw drop, and no doubt stood there like an idiot for a moment, before gathering himself and turning to look at Patrick. Patrick seemed to have frozen.

“You can’t own a heart!” Pete was yelling over the noise. “You can’t own a person’s heart, I don’t own it!”

“You can’t lie to me, vampire,” laughed the queen. “Have you never learned of compulsion? Come here,” she said to Patrick. Patrick glanced back and forth, looking hunted, and the guard-faeries with spears prompted him forwards. He stood next to Pete.

“Who possesses your heart?” the queen asked him.

“A heart isn’t a possession,” said Patrick bravely.

“Who possesses your heart, human?” Now she changed her voice, it was deep and echoing, seeming to echo around the hall like the sea in a shell. Her eyes flashed an inhuman yellow shade. Patrick opened and closed his mouth, like a stranded fish, and then he whispered,

“Pete.”

“Louder!” said the queen.

“Pete does,” said Patrick. Pete turned to him, looking horrified, and Patrick looked just as horrified by what had come out of his mouth.

“You vowed that you would give us anything in your possession in return for our aid,” said the queen. “We demand the human’s heart. Give it to us.”

“But – I mean – how?! That isn’t even possible-!” Pete objected. One of the guards drew a sword from his sheath and stepped closer to Patrick, making a supplication.

“Allow me to assist, my queen,” he said.

“NO!” yelled Pete. “That isn’t even what it means!”

“What does it mean?” the queen sounded amused. “Pray tell us.”

“It’s like – a metaphor –“ Pete stammered. “Not a literal heart! It’s like – love – like – we say heart when we mean love-…”

“And tell us,” the queen leaned forwards with her chin in one long, bony hand, “How you intend to deliver us this ‘metaphor’?”

“We can’t! It’s not possible, you’ll have to choose something else,” Pete said.

“You agreed to give us anything in your possession. We choose his heart. You must deliver it.”

“And if I don’t?” Pete demanded.

“Then we will take it in the way that seems best to us,” the queen shrugged. “He might make an adequate slave, or perhaps we will simply eat his heart. I have heard many tales of the delicacy of human hearts.”

Pete looked stricken.

“We will allow you three days,” said the queen. “To consider how to deliver us our due. Then we will take it.”

“You’re despicable,” Pete whispered, ill-advisedly.

“We?” The queen shrieked with laughter. “This was your offer, vampire, and your choice. _We_ offered _you_ our assistance.”

Pete stared at her for a long moment, but for possibly the first time since Joe had ever known him, he seemed to be lost for words.

*

“Patrick-“ said Pete.

“Shut up,” said Patrick.

“I didn’t know,” said Pete. “I didn’t know I could own-“

“You think I did?” Yelled Patrick. “You think I handed over my heart on purpose Pete? You – you just took it. When I wasn’t like – paying attention. You stole it.” He threw up his hands and stalked towards the wall of their weaponry, with a fleeting thought that apparently it was possible to love somebody and actively want to shoot them with a crossbow at the same time.

“I didn’t mean to,” Pete said plaintively. “I mean – wait, well I did. I wanted you to love me, Rick, because I love you.”

Patrick sat down on the couch and put his head in his hands. “You’d better not be quoting _Twilight_ at me right now.”

“I’m not!” Pete objected. “Um. I might have paraphrased.”

“YOU AND YOUR FUCKING PARAPHASING, PETE, I SWEAR TO GOD-“

“Okay,” said Andy, who as usual seemed to retain his composure and rationality. “Obviously, we need to figure out how to get out of this-“

“We can’t get out of it.” Patrick wasn’t feeling particularly reasonable. Well, he’d never had a vital organ used as a bargaining chip before, so sue him. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against his eyelids, so that he saw red-brown smudges. “You heard Gerard Way.”

“Gerard Way!” Pete exclaimed, like it was some great revelation. “He’ll know what to do. Or Ray will, if he doesn’t. Patrick, you’re a genius.”

“You’re insane,” Patrick told him flatly.

“You can’t insult me anymore, you love me,” Pete told him. “I receive your words as hallmarks of your affection.”

“You can receive my fist in your face if you don’t stop talking,” said Patrick. Pete made a zipping motion across his lips, but he looked smug. Andy had already found Pete’s phone and the contact for Mikey, Patrick guessed, because he pressed a couple of buttons then handed it to Pete.

“Hey Mikey,” Pete said brightly. “So um. About that faerie thing…”

*

“I absolutely warned you something like this would happen.”

Gerard was doing his school-teacher thing, the voice and the posture he did when he was trying to be a disciplinarian. It hadn’t worked on Mikey in over a hundred years, but Pete had never been exposed before, and he did look suitably shamefaced as he sat on the couch between Andy and Joe like they were going to protect him. Patrick had taken one of the chairs, not quite comfortable enough with the Way clan to physically side with them, but apparently too pissed off with Pete to sit near him. Mikey tried to look neutral and non-threatening.

“Yeah but,” Pete said. Then he apparently didn’t know what to follow that up with.

“I absolutely said she would twist your words,” Gerard went on.

“Okay well,” said Pete.

“I absolutely predicted the faeries would find a way to make this disastrous,” said Gerard.

“Okay you were right!” Pete threw his hands up. “You were right, I’m dumb, everyone else is smart. Okay?! Now the point is what are we going to do about it?”

“Do?” Gerard said. “I don’t know what we _can_ do.” But he was saying _we,_ and so Mikey was heartened. Gerard was loyal, you had to give him that, and once he’d committed to a friend or an ally, he would certainly put himself out for them.

“I’ve been reading up for historical cases of broken fae deals,” said Ray.

“And?” said Joe. “What do they do? What happens?”

“Fae tend to, uh,” Ray coughed. “Kill them. Or permanently enslave them in lieu of payment.”

“Hmm,” Joe said.

“Are you honestly telling me no-one has ever stood up to this bitch?” Pete demanded. “Then no wonder she keeps getting away with this shit!”

“Are you suggesting we fight her?” Gerard said archly. “How well do you imagine that will go? She’s unimaginably powerful in herself, and just happens to have almost half the fae on the planet at her beck and call. Even _if_ I thought potentially sparking some kind of vampire-faerie conflict was a good idea – which I _don’t_ – vampires aren’t anywhere near as organized and unified as the fae are.”

“Not _fight_ her, like physically fight,” Pete rolled his eyes. “Fae are bound by their word, right? That’s like, their key weakness. It also happens to be the one thing I'm good at. The key is in the words, somehow."

"Tell me again," Mikey said. "You said anything that was in your possession, except for your life and soul?"

"Right. And a heart can't be in someone's possession, can it? Not literally."

Mikey frowned. There was something nudging at the back of his consciousness, something grandmother had said to him, many years ago. It was just so unusual for human to bond with a vampire. But. It had happened. Hadn't they had a cousin - second cousin, or whatever - who had had a human wife, and when she'd died, hadn't...

"Ray," he said suddenly, looking up. "Come to the library. I think those damn genealogy lessons might be about to get useful."


	13. Chapter 13

“It’s because the bond is - _uneven_ ,” Mikey tried to explain for the fourteenth time, using his hands to attempt to give shape to the metaphor. “It’s not a matter of how much you feel about each other. Is just because vampires are psychic and humans, well, aren’t.”

“Patrick’s psychic,” said Pete.

“He’s not,” Mikey smiled. “Though its understandable if he’s been experiencing psychic phenomena. Its the bond.”

“Wait, wait,” Patrick held a hand. “I don’t remember agreeing to this psychic bond thing. This feels invasive.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Pete exclaimed.

“He really didn’t,” said Ray. “It just happens.”

“I didn’t know,” Pete told Patrick. “I mean sometimes I feel like I know what you're thinking. Or feeling. But I figured that was just because I’m in love with you.”

He said it so matter of factly, but Patrick looked startled. He shook his head a little bit.

“In any case,” Ray ran his finger down a page in one of the books. “Vampires don’t bond to humans very often. But there’s a chapter here on Mikey’s third cousin twice removed, a vampire with a human wife. They’d been courting for several months when he realized he was accidentally controlling some of her thoughts and actions.”

“They’d been what?” said Patrick.

“Courting,” said Mikey. “That’s what we called dating in those days.”

A slow look of horror was dawning on Pete’s face. “Are you saying I’m – _making_ Patrick be in love with me? Like its not his free choice?”

“Oh no,” said Mikey hurriedly. “It doesn’t work like that. The bond has to exist first.”

At the same time as Patrick said,

“Pete no. I already-“ He cleared this throat and turned bright red. “I already – before you were turned. I already – had feelings. About you.”

Pete beamed and slid over to side-hug Patrick, who squirmed but didn’t protest.

“Okay, so what do we do about it?” Patrick said.

“Well that’s the weird thing,” Mikey said. “We’re not sure. It seems like last time it sort of fixed itself, once the relationship was uh. Consumated.”

“Consumated,” repeated Pete.

“That’s what we called it in those days,” said Mikey. “Of course back then people didn’t usually have sex before they got married.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Patrick. “They screwed, and it fixed the problem.”

“It seemed to somehow even the level of connection,” Mikey shrugged. “But I mean, I don’t see how this would be a problem in the twenty-first century….” 

Patrick gave Pete an unreadable look. A look of understanding dawned on Pete’s face.

“Ohhh,” he said.

The penny dropped. Mikey felt his eyebrows go up and he raised his hands to his mouth.

“Oh you guys haven’t- oh my gosh, sorry! I just assumed – sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed. Uh. I just thought. Okay, I’m gonna stop talking.”

“Thank you,” said Patrick fervently. He grabbed Pete’s arm. “You. Come. We are going to talk.”

“Yes dear,” said Pete and mouthed, ‘thanks guys,’ to Ray and Mikey before following Patrick from the room.

*

“So,” said Patrick to Pete.

“Uh,” said Pete to Patrick.

“You didn’t want to have sex with me because you were afraid of breaking my weak human brain, when this whole time-“

“Well I didn’t know!” said Pete. “This is the first time I’ve ever been a vampire!”

“You don’t say,” drawled Patrick.

“In any case,” Pete grinned. “I guess we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

“Fuck no,” Patrick growled and grabbed the front of Pete’s shirt.

“Actually, fuck _yes_ at this point,” Pete grinned. 

“I can _hear you!”_ Joe screamed from the other room.

*

Naturally, Patrick was still pretty scared about how the faeries would take it, when they realized Pete didn’t ‘own’ his heart anymore. He was pretty sure Mikey was right, though – he felt different, though it was difficult to describe in actual words. More – peaceful? More balanced? Orrr maybe that was just the effect of really awesome sex.

Because it had been awesome. Despite Pete’s bizarre early view of him as some kind of innocent naïf, Patrick _had_ actually had sex before last night, thank you very much.

And it had been good. Nervewracking, naturally, because Anna was pretty and Patrick was Patrick and she probably had a whole bunch of expectations about her first time, and also, he’d been a sixteen-year-old boy at the time. But it had been good, once they’d fumbled their way into some kind of rhythm – it had been good for Patrick and Anna had assured him afterwards it was good for her, though evidently not good enough to prevent her from breaking up with him three weeks later. They’d had sex several times in those three weeks, though. So Patrick wasn’t completely inexperienced.

But sex with Pete had been – mindblowing.

That sounded so cringey, even in his head, like something out of a trashy book. But it was the most appropriate word, and the way he’d felt afterwards was so peaceful, lacking the anxiety and worries about judgement of all his previous encounters. Pete looked completely blissed out – but moreover, Patrick could _feel_ it – feel how happy and relaxed Pete was, and he realized that this must be it. This must be the vampire bond.

Patrick was still a tiny bit jealous of Mikey. He probably always would be, because Pete and Mikey shared something fundamental that Patrick didn’t. But he knew now that Pete didn’t want Mikey. He could feel it. Inexplicably, Pete wanted Patrick and only Patrick.

Patrick really was one hell of a lucky guy.

He just hoped that his luck held, because three days had now passed since they’d visited the court, and their time was up. They met up with the Way clan vampires a few hours before midnight, supposedly for planning purposes. In truth though, there wasn’t a lot to plan:

“We’ll just have to see what happens,” Pete shrugged. “But your sure the heart-owning thing doesn’t apply anymore?”

“Positive,” said Mikey. “I can tell from here.”

“You know, most humans find it kind of weird and invasive when you like, read our minds like that,” Andy frowned.

“He’s not reading his mind,” Gerard defended Mikey. “We can just sense these things, sometimes.”

The faerie guards collected them all from the clearing, looking amused to see the vampires but not objecting. Patrick guessed the arrogant assholes didn’t find very much to be threatening. The queen was still in the same place; the same pose. Once again, the court was very full. The queen was grinning as her guards escorted Pete and Patrick up to her dais, but as they approached her, her expression changed.

“What have you done?” she demanded.

“To be honest,” Pete grinned salaciously. “You probably don’t want the details.”

“You – you deceiver,” the queen snarled, and rose from her seat. Her eyes were fixed on Patrick, and her clawed hand tensed around her sceptre. “What sort of trickery is this?”

“Trickery?” Patrick said. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“You disrespect the queen?!” roared a guard, and made a move towards Patrick, but the queen held up one hand.

“Who owns your heart?” she demanded, cutting out the preludes and skipping straight to the echoing voice. Patrick found himself speaking, compelled, but the words brought a smile to his face:

“No-one,” he said. “My heart is not a possession. I love Pete, because I choose to love him. I own myself.”

Pete grinned like he was going to explore with happiness. He actually wriggled on the spot.

“You – you – how have you done this?” the queen snarled. She pointed to Patrick with her sceptre. “He is a _human!”_ She spat the word like a curse. How have you bonded with him as some sort of – some sort of _equal?_ ”

“I guess humans aren’t as pathetic as you think,” Patrick shrugged. “Pete used to be human, you know.”

“You _miserable_ specimen,” the queen addressed Pete. “You have gifts bestowed upon you the like of which humans could never dream, and you squander it on this – this _trash?”_ She waved the sceptre to encompass the other humans.

“Looks like we just have different opinions on what constitutes trash,” Pete shrugged, and looked at the queen directly.

“Your majesty, let me kill him,” the guard begged.

“We cannot,” the queen snarled. “He is here in fulfilment of an agreement.”

“Speaking of,” Pete said. “I believe I owe you a possession.”

“You think you own anything of value to me?”

“Not particularly, but who knows.”

“Get out,” the queen spat, and gestured with her sceptre.

“Am I released from the deal?” Pete demanded.

“By your despicable deception. You are released. Rot in the knowledge of faithlessness, you sorry excuse for a vampire. GET OUT! All of you!”

The guards grabbed Pete and Patrick by their arms, but Pete said,

“Hey hey! We’re going! Believe me, we’re happy to get out of here!”

On their way out, the faeries didn’t bother with much illusion. Or perhaps they were making an effort for more illusion – Patrick wasn’t sure. In any case, rather than a spiral staircase, they were more or less shoved out through what appeared to be a stone chamber and a set of gates before abruptly finding themselves back in the forest.

“Is – is it over?” Joe asked.

“I guess,” said Andy doubtfully. “Except for the whole incurring the wrath of the faerie court thing. I can’t help feeling like _that’s_ gonna come back to bite us in the ass.”

“Oh please,” said Pete. “For thirty seconds, let me enjoy my freedom from the deal and the fact that I can now have amazing sex with my boyfriend on a regular basis. Damn I’m telling you, it’s always the quiet ones that are the most-“

“OKAY STOP,” yelled Patrick at the same time as Joe stuck his fingers in his ears and yelled

“LA LA LA I can’t hear you!”

“Let’s go back to the warehouse,” said Andy, but he was grinning. “I want to train in the morning.”

*

Mikey held his pass in one hand as he made his way through the backstage corridors. It had been Fall Out Boy’s biggest gig yet. The cluster of teenage girls – and a few boys - clutching CDs and autograph books had grown exponentially, and they glared when the venue security guard noted the pass, then allowed Mikey to cut through and get to the dressing room. There was an actual sign with the band’s name on the door now.

Patrick answered his knock. There was a towel around his neck and a bottle of water in his head. His face was slightly red from the performance.

“Pete’s not here,” he said. There was an audible groan from the waiting kids, and a bunch of them dispersed. Mikey raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah that happens,” said Patrick.

“I came to talk to you, actually,” Mikey said.

“Oh,” Patrick said. He checked behind him - Mikey guessed to see if anybody was naked or something – then he shrugged and said, “Come in, I guess.”

Joe was on the couch, playing a video game and drinking a beer. He had headphones on but he waved one hand absently in Mikey’s direction. Mikey nodded, then sat down opposite Patrick, and said,

“So, you don’t like me very much.”

“What? Yes I do!” Patrick lied badly, turning a brighter shade of red and fumbling with his water bottle.

“No you don’t,” said Mikey. “Psychic, remember?”

“Shit,” said Patrick. “ _That’s_ gonna be annoying.”

“It can be,” Mikey agreed. “But in any case, since Gerard has decided to live in the twentieth century, and Pete is my friend, I figure we’re gonna be seeing each other around now.”

“Gerard has what?”

“We had a talk,” Mikey explained. “Like, a family meeting. Basically meeting you guys has persuaded him that the outside world might not be entirely terrible, and there might even be other vampires who are, like, sane. So….” Mikey produced a piece of note paper from his pocket. On it, he had meticulously copied out the Way family recipe for synthetic blood. “Gee still wanted to check with our grandmother before he let you have it, but once we explained about Pete she said it was okay. I understand you’re the guy who makes up his gross blood-smoothie things. So I brought you this. As a peace offering.”

“Huh,” said Patrick. Then he blurted: “It’s not that I don’t like you.”

“Kinda reads that way,” said Mikey, not unkindly.

“Well I’m – I’m jealous of you!” Patrick said, and turned an impossibly brighter shade of red.

Mikey was nonplussed.

“Why would you be jealous of me?” he asked slowly. “Your life is way cooler than mine is. You’re in a rock band, you have an awesome boyfriend-“

“Who just happens to be the same species as _you,_ with your psychic crap and your vampire powers and your superhuman abilities. I’m not saying I want to be a vampire-“ he said hurriedly, pre-empting the question that had risen to Mikey’s mind. “I’m just saying I don’t think my life is cooler than yours, plus I mean – you look – like _you,_ and I look like well – _me,_ and Pete looks like Pete and you can’t pretend you and him aren’t in kind of a different league to me.”

“Wow,” said Mikey. He didn’t think he had ever heard Patrick speak so much at one time. “Um. I don’t know what to say to that. Firstly, I’m straight. Secondly, even if I wasn’t, it’s a tiny bit insulting that you think I’d just waltz in and happily steal your boyfriend from you.”

“But it’s Pete,” Patrick said. “I was straight before I met him too. Pete is special.”

“That’s the other thing,” said Mikey. “You know how you feel about him? Pete is exactly as crazy about you. I’ve seen inside his head, but I wouldn’t even need to. It like – _radiates_ out of him. Especially when he’s near you. His aura glows.”

Patrick stared at him for a long moment.

“You should trust him,” Mikey said. “Even if you don’t trust me.”

“I – trust you,” said Patrick slowly. “Both of you.” He looked kind of stunned, but in a good way.

“Good,” said Mikey. “Cos I’m starting my band again and I want to know if you want to collaborate.”

“That – sounds good,” said Patrick. “You can text me. About that.”

“I don’t have your number,” Mikey reminded him.

“I’ll get yours from Pete.”

“Awesome,” Mikey stood up and held out his hand, which Patrick shook.

“Mikey,” said Patrick. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” said Mikey, and turned to head back through the crowds.

The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp that's a wrap on this one guys. Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading! Please let me know if you liked it.


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